FreeBSD Porter's Handbook

The FreeBSD Documentation Project

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ChapterÂ 1.Â Introduction

The FreeBSD Ports Collection is the way almost everyone installs
applications ("ports") on FreeBSD. Like everything else about FreeBSD,
it is primarily a volunteer effort. It is important to keep this
in mind when reading this document.

In FreeBSD, anyone may submit a new port, or volunteer to
maintain an existing unmaintained port. No special commit
privilege is needed.

ChapterÂ 2.Â Making a New Port

Interested in making a new port, or upgrading existing ports?
Great!

What follows are some guidelines for creating a new port for
FreeBSD. To upgrade an existing port, read
this, then read ChapterÂ 11, Upgrading a Port.

When this document is not sufficiently detailed,
refer to /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk, which is
included by all port Makefiles. Even those
not hacking Makefiles daily can gain much
knowledge from it. Additionally, specific questions can be sent
to the FreeBSD ports mailing list.

Note:

Only a fraction of the variables
(VAR) that can be
overridden are mentioned in this document. Most (if not all)
are documented at the start of
/usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk; the others
probably ought to be. Note that this file uses a non-standard
tab setting: Emacs and
Vim will recognize the setting on
loading the file. Both vi(1) and ex(1) can be set to
use the correct value by typing
:set tabstop=4 once the file has been
loaded.

Looking for something easy to start with? Take a look at the
list of
requested ports and see if you can work on one (or
more).

ChapterÂ 3.Â Quick Porting

This section describes how to quickly create a new port. For
applications where this quick method is not adequate, the full
“Slow Porting” process is described in
ChapterÂ 4, Slow Porting.

First, get the original tarball and put it into
DISTDIR, which defaults to
/usr/ports/distfiles.

Note:

These steps assume that the software compiled
out-of-the-box. In other words, absolutely no changes were
required for the application to work on a FreeBSD system. If
anything had to be changed, refer to ChapterÂ 4, Slow Porting.

Note:

It is recommended to set the DEVELOPERmake(1) variable in /etc/make.conf
before getting into porting.

#echo DEVELOPER=yes >> /etc/make.conf

This setting enables the “developer mode”
that displays deprecation warnings and activates some further
quality checks on calling make.

Note:

In some cases, the Makefile of an
existing port may contain additional lines in the header,
such as the name of the port and the date it was created.
This additional information has been declared obsolete, and
is being phased out.

Try to figure it out. Do not worry about the
contents of the $FreeBSD$
line, it will be filled in automatically by
Subversion when the port is
imported to our main ports tree. A more detailed
example is shown in the
sample Makefile
section.

3.2.Â Writing the Description Files

There are two description files that are required for
any port, whether they actually package or not. They are
pkg-descr and
pkg-plist. Their
pkg- prefix distinguishes them from other
files.

3.2.1.Â pkg-descr

This is a longer description of the port. One to a few
paragraphs concisely explaining what the port does is
sufficient.

Note:

This is not a manual or an
in-depth description on how to use or compile the port!
Please be careful when copying from the
README or manpage. Too
often they are not a concise description of the port or
are in an awkward format. For example, manpages have
justified spacing, which looks particularly bad with
monospaced fonts.

On the other hand, the content of
pkg-descr must be longer than the COMMENT
line from the Makefile. It must explain in more depth what
the port is all about.

A well-written pkg-descr describes
the port completely enough that users would not have to
consult the documentation or visit the website to understand
what the software does, how it can be useful, or what
particularly nice features it has. Mentioning certain
requirements like a graphical toolkit, heavy dependencies,
runtime environment, or implementation languages help users
decide whether this port will work for them.

Include a URL to the official WWW homepage. Prepend
one of the websites (pick the most
common one) with WWW: (followed by single
space) so that automated tools will work correctly. If the
URI is the root of the website or directory, it must be
terminated with a slash.

Note:

If the listed webpage for a port is not available, try
to search the Internet first to see if the official site
moved, was renamed, or is hosted elsewhere.

This example shows how
pkg-descr looks:

This is a port of oneko, in which a cat chases a poor mouse all over
the screen.
:
(etc.)
WWW: http://www.oneko.org/

3.2.2.Â pkg-plist

This file lists all the files installed by the port. It
is also called the “packing list” because the
package is generated by packing the files listed here. The
pathnames are relative to the installation prefix (usually
/usr/local).

Tip:

There is only one case when
pkg-plist can be omitted from a port.
If the port installs just a handful of files, list them in
PLIST_FILES, within the
port's Makefile. For instance, we
could get along without pkg-plist in
the above oneko port by adding these
lines to the Makefile:

Note:

Usage of PLIST_FILES should not be
abused. When looking for the origin of a file, people
usually try to grep through the
pkg-plist files in the ports tree.
Listing files in PLIST_FILES in the
Makefile makes that search more
difficult.

Tip:

The price for this way of listing a port's files and
directories is that the keywords described in
pkg-create(8) and SectionÂ 8.6, “Expanding Package List with Keywords” cannot
be used. Therefore, it is suitable
only for simple ports and makes them even simpler. At the
same time, it has the advantage of reducing the number of
files in the ports collection. Please consider using this
technique before resorting to
pkg-plist.

Thorough automated testing can be done with
ports-mgmt/poudriere from the
Ports Collection, see SectionÂ 10.5, “Poudriere” for
more information. It maintains jails where
all of the steps shown above can be tested without affecting the
state of the host system.

3.5.Â Checking the Port with
portlint

Please use portlint to see if the port
conforms to our guidelines. The
ports-mgmt/portlint
program is part of the ports collection. In particular,
check that the
Makefile is in the
right shape and the
package is named
appropriately.

Important:

Do not blindly follow the output of
portlint. It is a static lint tool and
sometimes gets things wrong.

3.6.Â Submitting the New Port

Once happy with the port, the only thing remaining is to
put it in the main FreeBSD ports tree and make everybody else
happy about it too.

Important:

We do not need the work directory or
the pkgname.tgz package, so delete them
now.

Next, either create a patch(1), or a shar(1) file.
Assuming the port is called oneko and is in
the games category.

ExampleÂ 3.1.Â Creating a .diff for a New
Port

Add all the files with svn add.
cd to the base of the ports tree so full
paths to the changed files are included in the diff, then
generate the diff with svn diff. For
example:

%svn add .%cd ../..%svn diff games/oneko > oneko.diff

Important:

To make it easier for committers to apply the patch on
their working copy of the ports tree, please generate the
.diff from the base of your ports
tree.

ExampleÂ 3.2.Â Creating a .shar for a New
Port

cd to the directory above where the
port directory is located, and use shar to
create the archive:

%cd ..%shar `find oneko` > oneko.shar

Submit one of oneko.shar or
oneko.diff with the bug submission
form. Use product “Ports &
Packages”, component “Individual Port(s)”,
and follow the guidelines shown there.
Add a short description of the program to the Description field
of the PR (perhaps a short version of
COMMENT), and remember to add
oneko.shar or
oneko.diff as an attachment.

Note:

Giving a good description in the summary of the problem
report makes the work of port committers a lot easier. We
prefer something like “New port:
category/portnameshort description of
the port” for new ports. Using this
scheme makes it easier and faster to begin the work of
committing the new port.

After submitting the port, please be patient. The time
needed to include a new port in FreeBSD can vary from a few days
to a few months. A simple search form of the Problem Report
database can be searched at https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/query.cgi.

To get a listing of open port
PRs, select Open and
Ports & Packages in the search form,
then click [Â SearchÂ ].

After looking at the new port, we will reply if necessary,
and commit it to the tree. The submitter's name will also be
added to the list of Additional
FreeBSD Contributors and other files.

ChapterÂ 4.Â Slow Porting

Okay, so it was not that simple, and the port required some
modifications to get it to work. In this section, we will
explain, step by step, how to modify it to get it to work with the
ports paradigm.

4.1.Â How Things Work

First, this is the sequence of events which occurs when the
user first types make in the port's
directory. Having
bsd.port.mk in another window while
reading this really helps to understand it.

But do not worry, not many people understand exactly how
bsd.port.mk is working...
:-)

The fetch target is run. The
fetch target is responsible for
making sure that the tarball exists locally in
DISTDIR. If
fetch cannot find the required
files in DISTDIR it will look up the URL
MASTER_SITES, which is set in the
Makefile, as well as our FTP mirrors where we put distfiles
as backup. It will then attempt to fetch the named
distribution file with FETCH, assuming
that the requesting site has direct access to the Internet.
If that succeeds, it will save the file in
DISTDIR for future use and
proceed.

The extract target is run.
It looks for the port's distribution file (typically a
compressed tarball) in
DISTDIR and unpacks it into a temporary
subdirectory specified by WRKDIR
(defaults to work).

The patch target is run.
First, any patches defined in PATCHFILES
are applied. Second, if any patch files named
patch-* are
found in PATCHDIR (defaults to the
files subdirectory), they are applied
at this time in alphabetical order.

The configure target is run.
This can do any one of many different things.

If it exists, scripts/configure
is run.

If HAS_CONFIGURE or
GNU_CONFIGURE is set,
WRKSRC/configure is run.

The build target is run.
This is responsible for descending into the port's private
working directory (WRKSRC) and building
it.

The stage target is run.
This puts the final set of built files into a temporary
directory (STAGEDIR, see
SectionÂ 6.1, “Staging”). The hierarchy of this directory
mirrors that of the system on which the package will be
installed.

The package target is run.
This creates a package using the files from the temporary
directory created during the
stage target and the port's
pkg-plist.

The install target is run.
This installs the package created during the
package target into the host
system.

The above are the default actions. In addition,
define targets
pre-something
or
post-something,
or put scripts with those names, in the
scripts subdirectory, and they will be
run before or after the default actions are done.

For example, if there is a
post-extract target defined in the
Makefile, and a file
pre-build in the
scripts subdirectory, the
post-extract target will be called
after the regular extraction actions, and
pre-build will be executed before
the default build rules are done. It is recommended to
use Makefile targets if the actions are
simple enough, because it will be easier for someone to figure
out what kind of non-default action the port requires.

The default actions are done by the
do-something
targets from bsd.port.mk.
For example, the commands to extract a port are in the target
do-extract. If
the default target does not do the job right, redefine the
do-something
target in the Makefile.

Note:

The “main” targets (for example,
extract,
configure, etc.) do nothing more
than make sure all the stages up to that one are completed and
call the real targets or scripts, and they are not intended to
be changed. To fix the extraction, fix
do-extract, but never ever change
the way extract operates!
Additionally, the target
post-deinstall is invalid and is
not run by the ports infrastructure.

Now that what goes on when the user types make
install is better understood, let us go through the
recommended steps to create the perfect port.

4.2.Â Getting the Original Sources

Get the original sources (normally) as a compressed tarball
(foo.tar.gz or
foo.tar.bz2) and
copy it into DISTDIR. Always use
mainstream sources when and where
possible.

Set the variable
MASTER_SITES to reflect where the original
tarball resides. Shorthand definitions exist
for most mainstream sites in bsd.sites.mk.
Please use these sites—and the associated
definitions—if at all possible, to help avoid the problem
of having the same information repeated over again many times in
the source base. As these sites tend to change over time, this
becomes a maintenance nightmare for everyone involved. See
SectionÂ 5.4.2, “MASTER_SITES” for details.

If there is no FTP/HTTP site that is well-connected to
the net, or can only find sites that have irritatingly
non-standard formats, put a copy on a reliable
FTP or HTTP server (for example, a home
page).

If a convenient and reliable place to put the distfile
cannot be found, we can “house” it ourselves on
ftp.FreeBSD.org; however, this is the
least-preferred solution. The distfile must be placed into
~/public_distfiles/ of someone's
freefall account. Ask the person who
commits the port to do this. This person will also set
MASTER_SITES to
LOCAL/username
where username is
their FreeBSD cluster login.

If the port's distfile changes all the time without any
kind of version update by the author, consider putting the
distfile on a home page and listing it as the first
MASTER_SITES. Try to talk the
port author out of doing this; it really does help to establish
some kind of source code control. Hosting a specific version
will prevent users from getting
checksum mismatch errors, and also reduce
the workload of maintainers of our FTP site. Also, if there is
only one master site for the port, it is recommended to
house a backup on a home page and list it as the second
MASTER_SITES.

If the port requires additional patches that are
available on the Internet, fetch them too and put them in
DISTDIR. Do not worry if they come from a
site other than where the main source tarball comes, we have a
way to handle these situations (see the description of PATCHFILES below).

4.3.Â Modifying the Port

Unpack a copy of the tarball in a private directory and make
whatever changes are necessary to get the port to compile
properly under the current version of FreeBSD. Keep
careful track of steps, as they will be
needed to automate the process shortly. Everything, including
the deletion, addition, or modification of files has to be
doable using an automated script or patch file when the port is
finished.

If the port requires significant user
interaction/customization to compile or install, take
a look at one of Larry Wall's classic
Configure scripts and perhaps do
something similar. The goal of the new ports
collection is to make each port as “plug-and-play”
as possible for the end-user while using a minimum of disk
space.

Note:

Unless explicitly stated, patch files, scripts, and other
files created and contributed to the FreeBSD ports
collection are assumed to be covered by the standard BSD
copyright conditions.

4.4.Â Patching

In the preparation of the port, files that have been added
or changed can be recorded with diff(1) for later feeding
to patch(1). Doing this with a typical file involves
saving a copy of the original file before making any changes
using a .orig suffix.

%cp filefile.orig

After all changes have been made, cd back
to the port directory. Use make makepatch to
generate updated patch files in the files
directory.

4.4.1.Â General Rules for Patching

Patch files are stored in PATCHDIR,
usually files/, from where they will be
automatically applied. All patches must be relative to
WRKSRC. Typically
WRKSRC is a subdirectory of
WRKDIR, the directory where the distfile is
extracted. Use make -V WRKSRC to see the
actual path. The patch names are to follow these
rules:

Avoid having more than one patch modify the same file.
For example, having both
patch-foobar.c and
patch-foobar.c2 making changes to
${WRKSRC}/foobar.c makes them fragile
and difficult to debug.

When creating names for patch files, replace each
underscore (_) with two underscores
(__) and each slash
(/) with one underscore
(_). For example, to patch a file
named src/freeglut_joystick.c, name
the corresponding patch
patch-src_freeglut__joystick.c. Do
not name patches like patch-aa or
patch-ab. Always use the path and
file name in patch names. Using make
makepatch automatically generates the correct
names.

A patch may modify multiple files if the changes are
related and the patch is named appropriately. For
example,
patch-add-missing-stdlib.h.

Only use characters [-+._a-zA-Z0-9]
for naming patches. In particular, do not use
:: as a path separator,
use _ instead.

Minimize the amount of non-functional whitespace changes
in patches. It is common in the Open Source world for
projects to share large amounts of a code base, but obey
different style and indenting rules. When taking a working
piece of functionality from one project to fix similar areas
in another, please be careful: the resulting patch may be full
of non-functional changes. It not only increases the size of
the ports repository but makes it hard to find out what
exactly caused the problem and what was changed at all.

If a file must be deleted, do it in the
post-extract target rather than as
part of the patch.

4.4.2.Â Manual Patch Generation

Note:

Manual patch creation is usually not necessary.
Automatic patch generation as described earlier in this
section is the preferred method. However, manual patching
may be required occasionally.

Patches are saved into files named
patch-* where
* indicates the pathname of the
file that is patched, such as
patch-Imakefile or
patch-src-config.h.

After the file has been modified, diff(1) is used to
record the differences between the original and the modified
version. -u causes diff(1) to produce
“unified” diffs, the preferred form.

%diff -u file.orig file > patch-pathname-file

When generating patches for new, added files,
-N is used to tell diff(1) to treat the
non-existent original file as if it existed but was
empty:

%diff -u -N newfile.orig newfile > patch-pathname-newfile

Do not add $FreeBSD$ RCS
strings in patches. When patches are added to the
Subversion repository with
svn add, the
fbsd:nokeywords property is set to
yes automatically so keywords in the patch
are not modified when committed. The property can be added
manually with svn propset fbsd:nokeywords yes
files....

Using the recurse (-r) option to
diff(1) to generate patches is fine, but please look at
the resulting patches to make sure there is no unnecessary
junk in there. In particular, diffs between two backup files,
Makefiles when the port uses
Imake or GNU configure,
etc., are unnecessary and have to be deleted. If it was
necessary to edit configure.in and run
autoconf to regenerate
configure, do not take the diffs of
configure (it often grows to a few thousand
lines!). Instead, define
USE_AUTOTOOLS=autoconf:261 and take the
diffs of configure.in.

4.4.3.Â Simple Automatic Replacements

Simple replacements can be performed directly from the
port Makefile using the in-place mode of
sed(1). This is useful when changes use the value of a
variable:

Quite often, software being ported uses the CR/LF
convention in source files. This may cause problems with
further patching, compiler warnings, or script execution (like
/bin/sh^M not found.) To quickly convert
all files from CR/LF to just LF, add this entry to the port
Makefile:

USES= dos2unix

A list of specific files to convert can be given:

USES= dos2unix
DOS2UNIX_FILES= util.c util.h

Use DOS2UNIX_REGEX to convert a group
of files across subdirectories. Its argument is a
find(1)-compatible regular expression. More on the
format is in re_format(7). This option is useful for
converting all files of a given extension. For example,
convert all source code files, leaving binary files
intact:

USES= dos2unix
DOS2UNIX_REGEX= .*\.([ch]|cpp)

A similar option is DOS2UNIX_GLOB,
which runs find for each element listed
in it.

USES= dos2unix
DOS2UNIX_GLOB= *.c *.cpp *.h

The base directory for the conversion can be set. This
is useful when there are multiple distfiles and several
contain files which require line-ending conversion.

USES= dos2unix
DOS2UNIX_WRKSRC= ${WRKDIR}

4.4.4.Â Patching Conditionally

Some ports need patches that are only applied for specific
FreeBSD versions or when a particular option is enabled or
disabled. Conditional patches are specified by placing the
full paths to the patch files in
EXTRA_PATCHES.

The framework will then use all the files named
patch-* in
that directory.

4.5.Â Configuring

Include any additional customization commands in the
configure script and save it in the
scripts subdirectory. As mentioned above,
it is also possible do this with Makefile
targets and/or scripts with the name
pre-configure or
post-configure.

4.6.Â Handling User Input

If the port requires user input to build, configure, or
install, set IS_INTERACTIVE in the
Makefile. This will allow
“overnight builds” to skip it. If the user
sets the variable BATCH in their environment (and
if the user sets the variable INTERACTIVE, then
only those ports requiring interaction are
built). This will save a lot of wasted time on the set of
machines that continually build ports (see below).

It is also recommended that if there are reasonable default
answers to the questions,
PACKAGE_BUILDING be used to turn off the
interactive script when it is set. This will allow us to build
the packages for CDROMs and FTP.

Configuring the Makefile is pretty
simple, and again we suggest looking at existing examples
before starting. Also, there is a
sample Makefile in this
handbook, so take a look and please follow the ordering of
variables and sections in that template to make the port easier
for others to read.

Consider these problems in sequence during the
design of the new Makefile:

5.1.Â The Original Source

Does it live in DISTDIR as a standard
gzipped tarball named something like
foozolix-1.2.tar.gz? If so, go on
to the next step. If not, the distribution file format might
require overriding one or more of
DISTVERSION, DISTNAME,
EXTRACT_CMD,
EXTRACT_BEFORE_ARGS,
EXTRACT_AFTER_ARGS,
EXTRACT_SUFX, or
DISTFILES.

In the worst case, create a custom
do-extract target to override the
default. This is rarely, if ever, necessary.

5.2.Â Naming

The first part of the port's Makefile
names the port, describes its version number, and lists it in
the correct category.

5.2.1.Â PORTNAME

Set PORTNAME to the base name of the
software. It is used as the base for the FreeBSD package, and
for DISTNAME.

Important:

The package name must be unique across the entire ports
tree. Make sure that the PORTNAME is not
already in use by an existing port, and that no other port
already has the same PKGBASE. If the
name has already been used, add either PKGNAMEPREFIX
or PKGNAMESUFFIX.

5.2.2.Â Versions, DISTVERSIONorPORTVERSION

Set DISTVERSION to the version number
of the software.

PORTVERSION is the version used for the
FreeBSD package. It will be automatically derived from
DISTVERSION to be compatible with FreeBSD's
package versioning scheme. If the version contains
letters, it might be needed to set
PORTVERSION and not
DISTVERSION.

Important:

Only one of PORTVERSION and
DISTVERSION can be set at a time.

From time to time, some software will use a version
scheme that is not compatible with how
DISTVERSION translates in
PORTVERSION.

1.2 is before
1.2p1 as 2p1,
think “2, patch level 1” which is a version
after any 2.X but before
3.

Note:

In here, the a,
b, and p are used as
if meaning “alpha”, “beta” or
“pre-release” and “patch level”,
but they are only letters and are sorted alphabetically,
so any letter can be used, and they will be sorted
appropriately.

TableÂ 5.1.Â Examples of DISTVERSION and the
Derived PORTVERSION

DISTVERSION

PORTVERSION

0.7.1d

0.7.1.d

10Alpha3

10.a3

3Beta7-pre2

3.b7.p2

8:f_17

8f.17

ExampleÂ 5.2.Â Using DISTVERSION

When the version only contains numbers separated by
dots, dashes or underscores, use
DISTVERSION.

PORTNAME= nekoto
DISTVERSION= 1.2-4

It will generate a PORTVERSION of
1.2.4.

ExampleÂ 5.3.Â Using DISTVERSION When the Version
Starts with a Letter or a Prefix

When the version starts or ends with a letter, or a
prefix or a suffix that is not part of the version, use
DISTVERSIONPREFIX,
DISTVERSION, and
DISTVERSIONSUFFIX.

If the version is v1.2-4:

PORTNAME= nekoto
DISTVERSIONPREFIX= v
DISTVERSION= 1_2_4

Some of the time, projects using
GitHub will use their name in
their versions. For example, the version could be
nekoto-1.2-4:

PORTNAME= nekoto
DISTVERSIONPREFIX= nekoto-
DISTVERSION= 1.2_4

Those projects also sometimes use some string at the end
of the version, for example,
1.2-4_RELEASE:

DISTVERSIONPREFIX and
DISTVERSIONSUFFIX will not be used while
constructing PORTVERSION, but only used
in DISTNAME.

All will generate a PORTVERSION of
1.2.4.

ExampleÂ 5.4.Â Using DISTVERSION When the Version
Contains Letters Meaning “alpha”,
“beta”, or “pre-release”

When the version contains numbers separated by dots,
dashes or underscores, and letters are used to mean
“alpha”, “beta” or
“pre-release”, which is, before the version
without the letters, use
DISTVERSION.

PORTNAME= nekoto
DISTVERSION= 1.2-pre4

PORTNAME= nekoto
DISTVERSION= 1.2p4

Both will generate a PORTVERSION of
1.2.p4 which is before than 1.2.
pkg-version(8) can be used to check that fact:

%pkg version -t 1.2.p4 1.2
<

ExampleÂ 5.5.Â Not Using DISTVERSION When the
Version Contains Letters Meaning "Patch Level"

When the version contains letters that are not meant as
“alpha”, “beta”, or
“pre”, but more in a “patch
level”, and meaning after the version without the
letters, use PORTVERSION.

PORTNAME= nekoto
PORTVERSION= 1.2p4

In this case, using DISTVERSION is
not possible because it would generate a version of
1.2.p4 which would be before
1.2 and not after. pkg-version(8)
will verify this:

%pkg version -t 1.2 1.2.p4
> %pkg version -t 1.2 1.2p4
<

1.2 is after
1.2.p4, which is
wrong in this case.

1.2 is before
1.2p4, which is what was
needed.

For some more advanced examples of setting
PORTVERSION, when the software's versioning
is really not compatible with FreeBSD's, or
DISTNAME when the distribution file does
not contain the version itself, see SectionÂ 5.4.1, “DISTNAME”.

5.2.3.Â PORTREVISION and
PORTEPOCH

5.2.3.1.Â PORTREVISION

PORTREVISION is a
monotonically increasing value which is reset to 0 with
every increase of DISTVERSION, typically
every time there is a new official vendor release. If
PORTREVISION is non-zero, the value is
appended to the package name. Changes to
PORTREVISION are used by automated tools
like pkg-version(8) to determine that a new package is
available.

PORTREVISION must be increased each
time a change is made to the port that changes the generated
package in any way. That includes changes that only affect
a package built with non-default
options.

Examples of when PORTREVISION
must be bumped:

Addition of patches to correct security
vulnerabilities, bugs, or to add new functionality to
the port.

Changes to the port Makefile to
enable or disable compile-time options in the
package.

Changes in the packing list or the install-time
behavior of the package. For example, a change to a
script which generates initial data for the package,
like ssh(1) host keys.

Version bump of a port's shared library dependency
(in this case, someone trying to install the old package
after installing a newer version of the dependency will
fail since it will look for the old libfoo.x instead of
libfoo.(x+1)).

Silent changes to the port distfile which have
significant functional differences. For example,
changes to the distfile requiring a correction to
distinfo with no corresponding
change to DISTVERSION, where a
diff -ru of the old and new versions
shows non-trivial changes to the code.

Examples of changes which do not require a
PORTREVISION bump:

Style changes to the port skeleton with no
functional change to what appears in the resulting
package.

Changes to MASTER_SITES or other
functional changes to the port which do not affect the
resulting package.

Trivial patches to the distfile such as correction
of typos, which are not important enough that users of
the package have to go to the trouble of
upgrading.

Build fixes which cause a package to become
compilable where it was previously failing. As long as
the changes do not introduce any functional change on
any other platforms on which the port did previously
build. Since PORTREVISION reflects
the content of the package, if the package was not
previously buildable then there is no need to increase
PORTREVISION to mark a change.

A rule of thumb is to decide whether a change
committed to a port is something which
some people would benefit from having.
Either because of an enhancement, fix,
or by virtue that the new package will actually work at
all. Then weigh that against that fact that it will cause
everyone who regularly updates their ports tree to be
compelled to update. If yes,
PORTREVISION must be bumped.

Note:

People using binary packages will
never see the update if
PORTREVISION is not bumped. Without
increasing PORTREVISION, the
package builders have no way to detect the change and
thus, will not rebuild the package.

5.2.3.2.Â PORTEPOCH

From time to time a software vendor or FreeBSD porter will
do something silly and release a version of their software
which is actually numerically less than the previous
version. An example of this is a port which goes from
foo-20000801 to foo-1.0 (the former will be incorrectly
treated as a newer version since 20000801 is a numerically
greater value than 1).

Tip:

The results of version number comparisons are not
always obvious. pkg version (see
pkg-version(8)) can be used to test the comparison of
two version number strings. For example:

%pkg version -t 0.031 0.29
>

The > output indicates that
version 0.031 is considered greater than version 0.29,
which may not have been obvious to the porter.

In situations such as this,
PORTEPOCH must be increased.
If PORTEPOCH is nonzero it is appended to
the package name as described in section 0 above.
PORTEPOCH must never be decreased or
reset to zero, because that would cause comparison to a
package from an earlier epoch to fail. For example, the
package would not be detected as out of date. The new
version number, 1.0,1 in the above
example, is still numerically less than the previous
version, 20000801, but the ,1 suffix is
treated specially by automated tools and found to be greater
than the implied suffix ,0 on the earlier
package.

Dropping or resetting PORTEPOCH
incorrectly leads to no end of grief. If the discussion
above was not clear enough, please consult the
FreeBSD ports mailing list.

It is expected that PORTEPOCH will
not be used for the majority of ports, and that sensible use
of DISTVERSION, or that use
PORTVERSION carefully, can often preempt
it
becoming necessary if a future release of the software
changes the version structure. However, care is
needed by FreeBSD porters when a vendor release is made without
an official version number — such as a code
“snapshot” release. The temptation is to label
the release with the release date, which will cause problems
as in the example above when a new “official”
release is made.

For example, if a snapshot release is made on the date
20000917, and the previous version of the
software was version 1.2, do not use
20000917 for
DISTVERSION. The correct way is a
DISTVERSION of
1.2.20000917, or similar, so that the
succeeding release, say 1.3, is still a
numerically greater value.

5.2.3.3.Â Example of PORTREVISION and
PORTEPOCH Usage

The gtkmumble port, version
0.10, is committed to the ports
collection:

PORTNAME= gtkmumble
DISTVERSION= 0.10

PKGNAME becomes
gtkmumble-0.10.

A security hole is discovered which requires a local
FreeBSD patch. PORTREVISION is bumped
accordingly.

PORTNAME= gtkmumble
DISTVERSION= 0.10
PORTREVISION= 1

PKGNAME becomes
gtkmumble-0.10_1

A new version is released by the vendor, numbered
0.2 (it turns out the author actually
intended 0.10 to actually mean
0.1.0, not “what comes after
0.9” - oops, too late now). Since the new minor
version 2 is numerically less than the
previous version 10,
PORTEPOCH must be bumped to manually
force the new package to be detected as
“newer”. Since it is a new vendor release of
the code, PORTREVISION is reset to 0 (or
removed from the Makefile).

PORTNAME= gtkmumble
DISTVERSION= 0.2
PORTEPOCH= 1

PKGNAME becomes
gtkmumble-0.2,1

The next release is 0.3. Since
PORTEPOCH never decreases, the version
variables are now:

PORTNAME= gtkmumble
DISTVERSION= 0.3
PORTEPOCH= 1

PKGNAME becomes
gtkmumble-0.3,1

Note:

If PORTEPOCH were reset to
0 with this upgrade, someone who had
installed the gtkmumble-0.10_1 package
would not detect the gtkmumble-0.3
package as newer, since 3 is still
numerically less than 10. Remember,
this is the whole point of PORTEPOCH in
the first place.

5.2.4.Â PKGNAMEPREFIX and
PKGNAMESUFFIX

Two optional variables, PKGNAMEPREFIX
and PKGNAMESUFFIX, are combined with
PORTNAME and PORTVERSION
to form PKGNAME as
${PKGNAMEPREFIX}${PORTNAME}${PKGNAMESUFFIX}-${PORTVERSION}.
Make sure this conforms to our
guidelines for a good
package name. In particular, the use of a
hyphen (-) in
PORTVERSION is not
allowed.
Also, if the package name has the
language- or the
-compiled.specifics part (see
below), use PKGNAMEPREFIX and
PKGNAMESUFFIX, respectively. Do not make
them part of PORTNAME.

5.2.5.Â Package Naming Conventions

These are the conventions to follow when
naming packages. This is to make the package directory
easy to scan, as there are already thousands of packages and
users are going to turn away if they hurt their eyes!

Package names take the form of
language_region-name-compiled.specifics-version.numbers.

The package name is defined as
${PKGNAMEPREFIX}${PORTNAME}${PKGNAMESUFFIX}-${PORTVERSION}.
Make sure to set the variables to conform to that
format.

language_region-

FreeBSD strives to support the native language of its
users. The language- part is
a two letter abbreviation of the natural language
defined by ISO-639 when the port is specific to a
certain language. Examples are ja
for Japanese, ru for Russian,
vi for Vietnamese,
zh for Chinese, ko
for Korean and de for German.

If the port is specific to a certain region within
the language area, add the two letter country code as
well. Examples are en_US for US
English and fr_CH for Swiss
French.

The language- part is
set in PKGNAMEPREFIX.

name

Make sure that the port's name and version are
clearly separated and placed into
PORTNAME and
DISTVERSION. The only
reason for PORTNAME to contain a
version part is if the upstream distribution is really
named that way, as in the
textproc/libxml2 or
japanese/kinput2-freewnn
ports. Otherwise, PORTNAME cannot
contain any version-specific information. It is quite
normal for several ports to have the same
PORTNAME, as the
www/apache* ports do; in
that case, different versions (and different index
entries) are distinguished by
PKGNAMEPREFIX
and PKGNAMESUFFIX values.

There is a tradition of naming
Perl 5 modules by prepending
p5- and converting the double-colon
separator to a hyphen. For example, the
Data::Dumper module becomes
p5-Data-Dumper.

-compiled.specifics

If the port can be built with different hardcoded defaults
(usually part of the directory name in a family of
ports), the
-compiled.specifics part
states the compiled-in defaults. The hyphen is
optional. Examples are paper size and font
units.

The -compiled.specifics
part is set in PKGNAMESUFFIX.

-version.numbers

The version string follows a dash
(-) and is a period-separated list of
integers and single lowercase alphabetics. In
particular, it is not permissible to have another dash
inside the version string. The only exception is the
string pl (meaning
“patchlevel”), which can be used
only when there are no major and
minor version numbers in the software. If the software
version has strings like “alpha”,
“beta”, “rc”, or
“pre”, take the first letter and put it
immediately after a period. If the version string
continues after those names, the numbers follow
the single alphabet without an extra period between
them (for example, 1.0b2).

The idea is to make it easier to sort ports by
looking at the version string. In particular, make sure
version number components are always delimited by a
period, and if the date is part of the string, use the
0.0.yyyy.mm.dd
format, not
dd.mm.yyyy
or the non-Y2K compliant
yy.mm.dd
format. It is important to prefix the version with
0.0. in case a release with an actual
version number is made, which would be
numerically less than
yyyy.

Important:

Package name must be unique among all of the ports
tree, check that there is not already a port with the same
PORTNAME and if there is add one of PKGNAMEPREFIX
or PKGNAMESUFFIX.

Here are some (real) examples on how to convert the name
as called by the software authors to a suitable package name,
for each line, only one of DISTVERSION or
PORTVERSION is set in, depending on which
would be used in the port's
Makefile:

TableÂ 5.2.Â Package Naming Examples

Distribution Name

PKGNAMEPREFIX

PORTNAME

PKGNAMESUFFIX

DISTVERSION

PORTVERSION

Reason or comment

mule-2.2.2

(empty)

mule

(empty)

2.2.2

Â

No changes required

mule-1.0.1

(empty)

mule

1

1.0.1

Â

This is version 1 of
mule, and version 2 already
exists

EmiClock-1.0.2

(empty)

emiclock

(empty)

1.0.2

Â

No uppercase names for single programs

rdist-1.3alpha

(empty)

rdist

(empty)

1.3alpha

Â

Version will be 1.3.a

es-0.9-beta1

(empty)

es

(empty)

0.9-beta1

Â

Version will be 0.9.b1

mailman-2.0rc3

(empty)

mailman

(empty)

2.0rc3

Â

Version will be 2.0.r3

v3.3beta021.src

(empty)

tiff

(empty)

Â

3.3

What the heck was that anyway?

tvtwm

(empty)

tvtwm

(empty)

Â

p11

No version in the filename, use what upstream
says it is

piewm

(empty)

piewm

(empty)

1.0

Â

No version in the filename, use what upstream
says it is

xvgr-2.10pl1

(empty)

xvgr

(empty)

Â

2.10.pl1

In that case, pl1 means patch
level, so using DISTVERSION is not possible.

gawk-2.15.6

ja-

gawk

(empty)

2.15.6

Â

Japanese language version

psutils-1.13

(empty)

psutils

-letter

1.13

Â

Paper size hardcoded at package build
time

pkfonts

(empty)

pkfonts

300

1.0

Â

Package for 300dpi fonts

If there is absolutely no trace of version information in
the original source and it is unlikely that the original
author will ever release another version, just set the version
string to 1.0 (like the
piewm example above). Otherwise, ask the
original author or use the date string the source file was
released on
(0.0.yyyy.mm.dd)
as the version.

5.3.Â Categorization

5.3.1.Â CATEGORIES

When a package is created, it is put under
/usr/ports/packages/All and links are
made from one or more subdirectories of
/usr/ports/packages. The names of these
subdirectories are specified by the variable
CATEGORIES. It is intended to make life
easier for the user when he is wading through the pile of
packages on the FTP site or the CDROM. Please take a look at
the current list of
categories and pick the ones that are suitable for
the port.

This list also determines where in the ports tree the port
is imported. If there is more than one category here,
the port files must be put in the subdirectory
with the name of the first category. See
below for more
discussion about how to pick the right categories.

5.3.2.Â Current List of Categories

Here is the current list of port categories. Those marked
with an asterisk (*) are
virtual categories—those that do
not have a corresponding subdirectory in the ports tree. They
are only used as secondary categories, and only for search
purposes.

Note:

For non-virtual categories, there is a one-line
description in COMMENT in that
subdirectory's Makefile.

5.3.3.Â Choosing the Right Category

As many of the categories overlap, choosing which of the
categories will be the primary category of the port can be
tedious. There are several rules that govern this issue.
Here is the list of priorities, in decreasing order of
precedence:

The first category must be a physical category (see
above). This is
necessary to make the packaging work. Virtual categories
and physical categories may be intermixed after
that.

Language specific categories always come first. For
example, if the port installs Japanese X11 fonts, then
the CATEGORIES line would read
japanese x11-fonts.

Specific categories are listed before less-specific
ones. For instance, an HTML editor is listed as
www editors, not the other way
around. Also, do not list
net when the port belongs to any of
irc, mail,
news, security,
or www, as net
is included implicitly.

x11 is used as a secondary
category only when the primary category is a natural
language. In particular, do not put
x11 in the category line for X
applications.

Emacs modes are
placed in the same ports category as the application
supported by the mode, not in
editors. For example, an
Emacs mode to edit source files
of some programming language goes into
lang.

Ports installing loadable kernel modules also
have the virtual category kld in
their CATEGORIES line. This is one of
the things handled automatically by adding
USES=kmod.

misc does not appear with any
other non-virtual category. If there is
misc with something else in
CATEGORIES, that means
misc can safely be deleted and the port
placed only in the other subdirectory.

If the port truly does not belong anywhere else,
put it in misc.

If the category is not clearly defined, please put a
comment to that effect in the port
submission in the bug database so
we can discuss it before we import it. As a committer,
send a note to the FreeBSD ports mailing list so we can discuss it
first. Too often, new ports are imported to the wrong
category only to be moved right away.

5.3.4.Â Proposing a New Category

As the Ports Collection has grown over time, various new
categories have been introduced. New categories can either be
virtual categories—those that do
not have a corresponding subdirectory in the ports tree—
or physical categories—those that
do. This section discusses the issues involved in creating a
new physical category. Read it thouroughly before proposing a
new one.

Our existing practice has been to avoid creating a new
physical category unless either a large number of ports would
logically belong to it, or the ports that would belong to it
are a logically distinct group that is of limited general
interest (for instance, categories related to spoken human
languages), or preferably both.

The rationale for this is that such a change creates a
fair
amount of work for both the committers and also for
all users who track changes to the Ports Collection. In
addition, proposed category changes just naturally seem to
attract controversy. (Perhaps this is because there is no
clear consensus on when a category is “too big”,
nor whether categories should lend themselves to browsing (and
thus what number of categories would be an ideal number), and
so forth.)

Here is the procedure:

Propose the new category on FreeBSD ports mailing list. Include
a detailed rationale for the new category,
including why the existing categories are not
sufficient, and the list of existing ports proposed to
move. (If there are new ports pending in
Bugzilla that would fit this
category, list them too.) If you are the maintainer
and/or submitter, respectively, mention that as it may
help the case.

Participate in the discussion.

If it seems that there is support for the idea, file
a PR which includes both the rationale and the list of
existing ports that need to be moved. Ideally, this PR
would also include these patches:

Makefiles for the new ports
once they are repocopied

Makefile for the new
category

Makefile for the old ports'
categories

Makefiles for ports that
depend on the old ports

(for extra credit, include the other files
that have to change, as per the procedure in the
Committer's Guide.)

Since it affects the ports infrastructure and involves
moving and patching many ports but also possibly running
regression tests on the build cluster, assign the PR to
the Ports Management Team <portmgr@FreeBSD.org>.

Proposing a new virtual category is similar to the
above but much less involved, since no ports will actually
have to move. In this case, the only patches to include in
the PR would be those to add the new category to
CATEGORIES of the affected ports.

5.3.5.Â Proposing Reorganizing All the Categories

Occasionally someone proposes reorganizing the
categories with either a 2-level structure, or some other kind
of keyword structure. To date, nothing has come of any of
these proposals because, while they are very easy to make, the
effort involved to retrofit the entire existing ports
collection with any kind of reorganization is daunting to say
the very least. Please read the history of these proposals in
the mailing list archives before posting this idea.
Furthermore, be prepared to be challenged to offer
a working prototype.

5.4.Â The Distribution Files

The second part of the Makefile
describes the files that must be downloaded to build
the port, and where they can be downloaded.

5.4.1.Â DISTNAME

DISTNAME is the name of the port as
called by the authors of the software.
DISTNAME defaults to
${PORTNAME}-${DISTVERSIONPREFIX}${DISTVERSION}${DISTVERSIONSUFFIX},
and if not set, DISTVERSION defaults to
${PORTVERSION} so override
DISTNAME
only if necessary. DISTNAME is only used
in two places. First, the distribution file list
(DISTFILES) defaults to
${DISTNAME}${EXTRACT_SUFX}.
Second, the distribution file is expected to extract into a
subdirectory named WRKSRC, which defaults
to work/${DISTNAME}.

Some vendor's distribution names which do not fit into the
${PORTNAME}-${PORTVERSION}-scheme can be
handled automatically by setting
DISTVERSIONPREFIX,
DISTVERSION, and
DISTVERSIONSUFFIX.
PORTVERSION will be derived from
DISTVERSION automatically.

Important:

Only one of PORTVERSION and
DISTVERSION can be set at a time. If
DISTVERSION does not derive a correct
PORTVERSION, do not use
DISTVERSION.

If the upstream version scheme can be derived into a
ports-compatible version scheme, set some variable to the
upstream version, do not use
DISTVERSION as the variable name. Set
PORTVERSION to the computed version based
on the variable you
created, and set DISTNAME
accordingly.

If the upstream version scheme cannot easily be coerced
into a ports-compatible value, set
PORTVERSION to a sensible value, and set
DISTNAME with PORTNAME
with the verbatim upstream version.

ExampleÂ 5.6.Â Deriving PORTVERSION
Manually

BIND9 uses a version scheme
that is not compatible with the ports versions (it has
- in its versions) and cannot be derived
using DISTVERSION because after the 9.9.9
release, it will release a “patchlevels” in the
form of 9.9.9-P1. DISTVERSION would
translate that into 9.9.9.p1, which, in
the ports versioning scheme means 9.9.9 pre-release 1, which
is before 9.9.9 and not after. So
PORTVERSION is manually derived from an
ISCVERSION variable to output
9.9.9p1.

The order into which the ports framework, and pkg, will
sort versions is checked using the -t
argument of pkg-version(8):

%pkg version -t 9.9.9 9.9.9.p1
> %pkg version -t 9.9.9 9.9.9p1
<

The > sign means that the
first argument passed to -t is
greater than the second argument.
9.9.9 is after
9.9.9.p1.

The < sign means that the
first argument passed to -t is less
than the second argument. 9.9.9 is
before 9.9.9p1.

Note:

PKGNAMEPREFIX and
PKGNAMESUFFIX do not affect
DISTNAME. Also note that if
WRKSRC is equal to
${WRKDIR}/${DISTNAME} while
the original source archive is named something other than
${PORTNAME}-${PORTVERSION}${EXTRACT_SUFX},
leave DISTNAME
alone— defining only
DISTFILES is easier than both
DISTNAME and WRKSRC
(and possibly EXTRACT_SUFX).

5.4.2.Â MASTER_SITES

Record the directory part of the FTP/HTTP-URL pointing at
the original tarball in MASTER_SITES. Do
not forget the trailing slash (/)!

The make macros will try to use this
specification for grabbing the distribution file with
FETCH if they cannot find it already on the
system.

It is recommended that multiple sites are included on this
list, preferably from different continents. This will
safeguard against wide-area network problems.

Important:

MASTER_SITES must not be blank. It
must point to the actual site hosting the distribution
files. It cannot point to web archives, or the FreeBSD
distribution files cache sites. The only exception to this
rule is ports that do not have any distribution files. For
example, meta-ports do not have any distribution files, so
MASTER_SITES does not need to be
set.

5.4.2.1.Â Using
MASTER_SITE_*
Variables

Shortcut abbreviations are available for popular
archives like SourceForge (SOURCEFORGE),
GNU (GNU), or Perl CPAN
(PERL_CPAN).
MASTER_SITES can use them
directly:

MASTER_SITES= GNU/make

The older expanded format still works, but all ports
have been converted to the compact format. The expanded
format looks like this:

MASTER_SITES= ${MASTER_SITE_GNU}
MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR= make

These values and variables are defined in Mk/bsd.sites.mk.
New entries are added often, so make sure to check the
latest version of this file before submitting a port.

Tip:

For any
MASTER_SITE_FOO
variable, the shorthand
FOO can be
used. For example, use:

MASTER_SITES= FOO

If MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR is needed,
use this:

MASTER_SITES= FOO/bar

Note:

Some
MASTER_SITE_*
names are quite long, and for ease of use, shortcuts have
been defined:

TableÂ 5.3.Â Shortcuts for
MASTER_SITE_*
Macros

Macro

Shortcut

PERL_CPAN

CPAN

GITHUB

GH

GITHUB_CLOUD

GHC

LIBREOFFICE_DEV

LODEV

NETLIB

NL

RUBYGEMS

RG

SOURCEFORGE

SF

SOURCEFORGE_JP

SFJP

5.4.2.2.Â Magic MASTER_SITES Macros

Several “magic” macros exist for
popular sites with a predictable directory structure. For
these, just use the abbreviation and the system will choose
a subdirectory automatically. For a port
named Stardict, of version
1.2.3, and hosted on SourceForge, adding
this line:

MASTER_SITES= SF

infers a subdirectory named
/project/stardict/stardict/1.2.3. If the
inferred directory is incorrect, it can be
overridden:

5.4.3.Â USE_GITHUB

If the distribution file comes from a specific commit or
tag on GitHub
for which there is no officially released file, there is an
easy way to set the right DISTNAME and
MASTER_SITES automatically. These
variables are available:

TableÂ 5.5.Â USE_GITHUB Description

Variable

Description

Default

GH_ACCOUNT

Account name of the GitHub user hosting the
project

${PORTNAME}

GH_PROJECT

Name of the project on GitHub

${PORTNAME}

GH_TAGNAME

Name of the tag to download (2.0.1, hash, ...)
Using the name of a branch here is incorrect. It is
also possible to use the hash of a commit id to do a
snapshot.

GH_TUPLE allows putting
GH_ACCOUNT,
GH_PROJECT,
GH_TAGNAME, and
GH_SUBDIR into a single variable.
The format is
account:project:tagname:group/subdir.
The
/subdir
part is optional. It is helpful when there is more
than one GitHub project from which to fetch.

Â

Important:

Do not use GH_TUPLE for the default
distribution file, as it has no default.

ExampleÂ 5.10.Â Simple Use of USE_GITHUB

While trying to make a port for version
1.2.7 of pkg
from the FreeBSD user on github, at https://github.com/freebsd/pkg, The
Makefile would end up looking like
this (slightly stripped for the example):

PORTNAME= pkg
DISTVERSION= 1.2.7
USE_GITHUB= yes
GH_ACCOUNT= freebsd

It will automatically have
MASTER_SITES set to GH
GHC and WRKSRC to
${WRKDIR}/pkg-1.2.7.

ExampleÂ 5.11.Â More Complete Use of
USE_GITHUB

While trying to make a port for the bleeding edge
version of pkg from the FreeBSD
user on github, at https://github.com/freebsd/pkg, the
Makefile ends up looking like
this (slightly stripped for the example):

It will automatically have
MASTER_SITES set to GH
GHC and WRKSRC to
${WRKDIR}/pkg-6dbb17b.

Tip:

20140411 is the date of the
commit referenced in GH_TAGNAME, not
the date the Makefile is edited, or
the date the commit is made.

ExampleÂ 5.12.Â Use of USE_GITHUB with
DISTVERSIONPREFIX

From time to time, GH_TAGNAME is a
slight variation from DISTVERSION.
For example, if the version is 1.0.2,
the tag is v1.0.2. In those cases, it
is possible to use DISTVERSIONPREFIX or
DISTVERSIONSUFFIX:

PORTNAME= foo
DISTVERSIONPREFIX= v
DISTVERSION= 1.0.2
USE_GITHUB= yes

It will automatically set
GH_TAGNAME to
v1.0.2, while WRKSRC
will be kept to
${WRKDIR}/foo-1.0.2.

ExampleÂ 5.13.Â Using USE_GITHUB When Upstream Does
Not Use Versions

If there never was a version upstream, do not invent one
like 0.1 or 1.0.
Create the port with a DISTVERSION of
gYYYYMMDD,
where g is for
Git, and
YYYYMMDD
represents the date the commit referenced in
GH_TAGNAME.

When fetching multiple files from GitHub, sometimes the
default distribution file is not fetched from GitHub. To disable
fetching the default distribution, set:

USE_GITHUB= nodefault

Multiple values are added to
GH_ACCOUNT,
GH_PROJECT, and
GH_TAGNAME. Each different value is
assigned a group. The main value can either have no group,
or the :DEFAULT group. A value can be
omitted if it is the same as the default as listed in
TableÂ 5.5, “USE_GITHUB Description”.

GH_TUPLE can also be used when there
are a lot of distribution files. It helps keep the account,
project, tagname, and group information at the same
place.

For each group, a
${WRKSRC_group}
helper variable is created, containing the directory into
which the file has been extracted. The
${WRKSRC_group}
variables can be used to move directories around during
post-extract, or add to
CONFIGURE_ARGS, or whatever is needed
so that the software builds correctly.

Caution:

The
:group part
must be used for only
one distribution file. It is used as a
unique key and using it more than once will overwrite the
previous values.

This will fetch three distribution files from
github. The default one comes from
foo/foo and is version
1.0.2. The second one, with the
icons group, comes from
bar/foo-icons and is in version
1.0. The third one comes from
bar/foo-contrib and uses the
Git commit
fa579bc. The distribution files are
named foo-foo-1.0.2_GH0.tar.gz,
bar-foo-icons-1.0_GH0.tar.gz, and
bar-foo-contrib-fa579bc_GH0.tar.gz.

All the distribution files are extracted in
${WRKDIR} in their respective
subdirectories. The default file is still extracted in
${WRKSRC}, in this case,
${WRKDIR}/foo-1.0.2. Each
additional distribution file is extracted in
${WRKSRC_group}.
Here, for the icons group, it is called
${WRKSRC_icons} and it contains
${WRKDIR}/foo-icons-1.0. The file
with the contrib group is called
${WRKSRC_contrib} and contains
${WRKDIR}/foo-contrib-fa579bc.

The software's build system expects to find the icons
in a ext/icons subdirectory in its
sources, so GH_SUBDIR is used.
GH_SUBDIR makes sure that
ext exists, but that
ext/icons does not already exist.
Then it does this:

post-extract:
@${MV} ${WRKSRC_icons} ${WRKSRC}/ext/icons

ExampleÂ 5.16.Â Use of USE_GITHUB with Multiple
Distribution Files Using
GH_TUPLE

It can also be found on GitHub. Each subdirectory
that is a submodule is shown as
directoryÂ @Â hash,
for example,
mongooseÂ @Â 2140e59.

Note:

While getting the information from GitHub seems more
straightforward, the information found using
git submodule status will provide
more meaningful information. For example, here,
lib/wxsqlite3's commit hash
fb66eb2 correspond to
v3.4.0. Both can be used
interchangeably, but when a tag is available, use
it.

Now that all the required information has been
gathered, the Makefile can be written
(only GitHub-related lines are shown):

5.4.4.Â EXTRACT_SUFX

If there is one distribution file, and it uses an odd
suffix to indicate the compression mechanism, set
EXTRACT_SUFX.

For example, if the distribution file was named
foo.tar.gzip instead of the more normal
foo.tar.gz, write:

DISTNAME= foo
EXTRACT_SUFX= .tar.gzip

The
USES=tar[:xxx],
USES=lha or USES=zip
automatically set EXTRACT_SUFX to the most
common archives extensions as necessary, see ChapterÂ 17, Using USES
Macros for more details. If neither of
these are set then EXTRACT_SUFX defaults to
.tar.gz.

Note:

As EXTRACT_SUFX is only used in
DISTFILES, only set one of them..

5.4.5.Â DISTFILES

Sometimes the names of the files to be downloaded have no
resemblance to the name of the port. For example, it might be
called source.tar.gz or similar. In
other cases the application's source code might be in several
different archives, all of which must be downloaded.

If this is the case, set DISTFILES to
be a space separated list of all the files that must be
downloaded.

DISTFILES= source1.tar.gz source2.tar.gz

If not explicitly set, DISTFILES
defaults to
${DISTNAME}${EXTRACT_SUFX}.

5.4.6.Â EXTRACT_ONLY

If only some of the DISTFILES must be
extracted—for example, one of them is the source code,
while another is an uncompressed document—list the
filenames that must be extracted in
EXTRACT_ONLY.

DISTFILES= source.tar.gz manual.html
EXTRACT_ONLY= source.tar.gz

When none of the DISTFILES need to be
uncompressed, set EXTRACT_ONLY to the empty
string.

EXTRACT_ONLY=

5.4.7.Â PATCHFILES

If the port requires some additional patches that are
available by FTP or
HTTP, set PATCHFILES to
the names of the files and PATCH_SITES to
the URL of the directory that contains them (the format is the
same as MASTER_SITES).

If the patch is not relative to the top of the source tree
(that is, WRKSRC) because it contains some
extra pathnames, set PATCH_DIST_STRIP
accordingly. For instance, if all the pathnames in the patch
have an extra foozolix-1.0/ in front of the
filenames, then set
PATCH_DIST_STRIP=-p1.

Do not worry if the patches are compressed; they will be
decompressed automatically if the filenames end with
.Z, .gz,
.bz2 or .xz.

If the patch is distributed with some other files, such as
documentation, in a compressed tarball, using
PATCHFILES is not possible. If that is the
case, add the name and the location of the patch tarball to
DISTFILES and
MASTER_SITES. Then, use
EXTRA_PATCHES to point to those
files and bsd.port.mk will automatically
apply them. In particular, do
not copy patch files into
${PATCHDIR}. That directory may
not be writable.

Tip:

If there are multiple patches and they need mixed values
for the strip parameter, it can be added alongside the patch
name in PATCHFILES, e.g:

Note:

The tarball will have been extracted alongside the
regular source by then, so there is no need to explicitly
extract it if it is a regular compressed tarball. Take extra
care not to overwrite something that already exists in that
directory if extracting it manually. Also, do not forget to
add a command to remove the copied patch in the
pre-clean target.

(Consider this to be a somewhat
“advanced topic”; those new to this document
may wish to skip this section at first).

This section has information on the fetching mechanism
known as both MASTER_SITES:n and
MASTER_SITES_NN. We will refer to this
mechanism as MASTER_SITES:n.

A little background first. OpenBSD has a neat feature
inside DISTFILES and
PATCHFILES which allows files and
patches to be postfixed with :n
identifiers. Here, n can be any word
containing [0-9a-zA-Z_] and denote a group
designation. For example:

DISTFILES= alpha:0 beta:1

In OpenBSD, distribution file alpha
will be associated with variable
MASTER_SITES0 instead of our common
MASTER_SITES and
beta with
MASTER_SITES1.

This is a very interesting feature which can decrease
that endless search for the correct download site.

Just picture 2 files in DISTFILES and
20 sites in MASTER_SITES, the sites slow as
hell where beta is carried by all sites
in MASTER_SITES, and
alpha can only be found in the 20th site.
It would be such a waste to check all of them if the
maintainer knew this beforehand, would it not? Not a good
start for that lovely weekend!

Now that you have the idea, just imagine more
DISTFILES and more
MASTER_SITES. Surely our
“distfiles survey meister” would appreciate the
relief to network strain that this would bring.

In the next sections, information will follow on the
FreeBSD implementation of this idea. We improved a bit on
OpenBSD's concept.

Important:

The group names cannot have dashes in them
(-), in fact, they cannot have any
characters out of the [a-zA-Z0-9_] range.
This is because, while make(1) is ok with variable
names containing dashes, sh(1) is not.

5.4.8.1.Â Simplified Information

This section explains how to quickly prepare fine
grained fetching of multiple distribution files and patches
from different sites and subdirectories. We describe here a
case of simplified MASTER_SITES:n usage.
This will be sufficient for most scenarios. More detailed
information are available in SectionÂ 5.4.8.2, “Detailed Information”.

Some applications consist of multiple distribution files
that must be downloaded from a number of different sites.
For example, Ghostscript consists
of the core of the program, and then a large number of
driver files that are used depending on the user's printer.
Some of these driver files are supplied with the core, but
many others must be downloaded from a variety of different
sites.

To support this, each entry in
DISTFILES may be followed by a colon and
a “group name”. Each site listed in
MASTER_SITES is then followed by a colon,
and the group that indicates which distribution files are
downloaded from this site.

5.4.8.2.Â Detailed Information

Okay, so the previous example did not reflect the new
port's needs? In this section we will explain in detail how
the fine grained fetching mechanism
MASTER_SITES:n works and how it can
be used.

Elements can be postfixed with
:n where
n is
[^:,]+, that is,
n could conceptually be any
alphanumeric string but we will limit it to
[a-zA-Z_][0-9a-zA-Z_]+ for
now.

Moreover, string matching is case sensitive; that
is, n is different from
N.

However, these words cannot be used for
postfixing purposes since they yield special meaning:
default, all and
ALL (they are used internally in
item ii).
Furthermore, DEFAULT is a special
purpose word (check item 3).

Elements postfixed with :n
belong to the group n,
:m belong to group
m and so forth.

Elements without a postfix are groupless, they
all belong to the special group
DEFAULT. Any elements postfixed
with DEFAULT, is just being
redundant unless an element belongs
to both DEFAULT and other groups at
the same time (check item 5).

These examples are equivalent but the first
one is preferred:

MASTER_SITES= alpha

MASTER_SITES= alpha:DEFAULT

Groups are not exclusive, an element may belong to
several different groups at the same time and a group
can either have either several different elements or
none at all.

When an element belongs to several groups
at the same time, use the comma operator
(,).

Instead of repeating it several times, each time
with a different postfix, we can list several groups at
once in a single postfix. For instance,
:m,n,o marks an element that belongs
to group m, n and
o.

All these examples are equivalent but the
last one is preferred:

MASTER_SITES= alpha alpha:SOME_SITE

MASTER_SITES= alpha:DEFAULT alpha:SOME_SITE

MASTER_SITES= alpha:SOME_SITE,DEFAULT

MASTER_SITES= alpha:DEFAULT,SOME_SITE

All sites within a given group are sorted according
to MASTER_SORT_AWK. All groups
within MASTER_SITES and
PATCH_SITES are sorted as
well.

Group semantics can be used in any of the
variables MASTER_SITES,
PATCH_SITES,
MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR,
PATCH_SITE_SUBDIR,
DISTFILES, and
PATCHFILES according to this
syntax:

5.4.8.3.Â What Does Change for Ports? What Does Not?

All current ports remain the same. The
MASTER_SITES:n feature code is only
activated if there are elements postfixed with
:n like
elements according to the aforementioned syntax rules,
especially as shown in item 7.

fetch-list: works
like old fetch-list with
the exception that it groups just like
do-fetch.

master-sites and
patch-sites:
(incompatible with older versions) only return the
elements of group DEFAULT; in
fact, they execute targets
master-sites-default and
patch-sites-default
respectively.

Furthermore, using target either
master-sites-all or
patch-sites-all is
preferred to directly checking either
MASTER_SITES or
PATCH_SITES. Also,
directly checking is not guaranteed to work in any
future versions. Check item B
for more information on these new port
targets.

New port targets

There are
master-sites-n
and
patch-sites-n
targets which will list the elements of the
respective group n
within MASTER_SITES and
PATCH_SITES respectively. For
instance, both
master-sites-DEFAULT
and patch-sites-DEFAULT
will return the elements of group
DEFAULT,
master-sites-test and
patch-sites-test of
group test, and thereon.

There are new targets
master-sites-all and
patch-sites-all which do
the work of the old
master-sites and
patch-sites ones. They
return the elements of all groups as if they all
belonged to the same group with the caveat that it
lists as many MASTER_SITE_BACKUP
and MASTER_SITE_OVERRIDE as there
are groups defined within either
DISTFILES or
PATCHFILES; respectively for
master-sites-all and
patch-sites-all.

5.4.9.Â DIST_SUBDIR

Do not let the port clutter
/usr/ports/distfiles. If the port
requires a lot of files to be fetched, or contains a file that
has a name that might conflict with other ports (for example,
Makefile), set
DIST_SUBDIR to the name of the port
(${PORTNAME} or
${PKGNAMEPREFIX}${PORTNAME} are
fine). This will change DISTDIR from the
default /usr/ports/distfiles to
/usr/ports/distfiles/${DIST_SUBDIR}, and
in effect puts everything that is required for the port into
that subdirectory.

It will also look at the subdirectory with the same name
on the backup master site at http://distcache.FreeBSD.org
(Setting
DISTDIR explicitly in
Makefile will not accomplish this, so
please use DIST_SUBDIR.)

Note:

This does not affect
MASTER_SITES defined in the
Makefile.

5.5.Â MAINTAINER

Set your mail-address here. Please.
:-)

Only a single address without the comment part is
allowed as a MAINTAINER value. The format
used is user@hostname.domain. Please
do not include any descriptive text such as a real name in
this entry. That merely confuses the Ports infrastructure
and most tools using it.

The maintainer is responsible for keeping the port up to
date and making sure that it works correctly. For a detailed
description of the responsibilities of a port maintainer, refer
to The
challenge for port maintainers.

Note:

A maintainer volunteers to keep a port in good working
order. Maintainers have the primary responsibility for their
ports, but not exclusive ownership. Ports exist for the
benefit of the community and, in reality, belong to the
community. What this means is that people other than the
maintainer can make changes to a port. Large changes to the
Ports Collection might require changes to many ports. The
FreeBSD Ports Management Team or members of other teams might
modify ports to fix dependency issues or other problems, like
a version bump for a shared library update.

Some types of fixes have “blanket approval”
from the Ports Management Team <portmgr@FreeBSD.org>, allowing any committer to fix those
categories of problems on any port. These fixes do not need
approval from the maintainer. Blanket approval does not apply
to ports that are maintained by teams like <autotools@FreeBSD.org>, <x11@FreeBSD.org>, <gnome@FreeBSD.org>, or <kde@FreeBSD.org>. These teams use
external repositories and can have work that would conflict
with changes that would normally fall under blanket
approval.

Blanket approval for most ports applies to these types of
fixes:

Most infrastructure changes to a port (that is,
modernizing, but not changing the functionality). For
example, converting to staging,
USE_GMAKE to
USES=gmake, the new
LIB_DEPENDS format...

Trivial and tested build and
runtime fixes.

Other changes to the port will be sent to the maintainer
for review and approval before being committed. If the
maintainer does not respond to an update request after two weeks
(excluding major public holidays), then that is considered a
maintainer timeout, and the update may be made without explicit
maintainer approval. If the maintainer does not respond within
three months, or if there have been three consecutive timeouts,
then that maintainer is considered absent without
leave, and can be replaced as the maintainer of the particular
port in question. Exceptions to this are anything maintained by
the Ports Management Team <portmgr@FreeBSD.org>, or the Security Officer Team <security-officer@FreeBSD.org>. No unauthorized
commits may ever be made to ports maintained by those
groups.

We reserve the right to modify the maintainer's submission
to better match existing policies and style of the Ports
Collection without explicit blessing from the submitter or the
maintainer. Also,
large infrastructural changes can result in a port being
modified without the maintainer's consent. These kinds of
changes will never affect the port's functionality.

The Ports Management Team <portmgr@FreeBSD.org> reserves the right to revoke or override
anyone's maintainership for any reason, and the
Security Officer Team <security-officer@FreeBSD.org> reserves the right to revoke or override
maintainership for security reasons.

5.6.Â COMMENT

The comment is a one-line description of a port shown by
pkg info. Please follow these rules when
composing it:

The COMMENT string should be 70 characters or
less.

Do not include the package name or
version number of software.

The comment must begin with a capital and end without
a period.

Do not start with an indefinite article (that is, A or
An).

Capitalize names such as Apache, JavaScript, or
Perl.

Use a serial comma for lists of words: "green,
red, and blue."

Check for spelling errors.

Here is an example:

COMMENT= Cat chasing a mouse all over the screen

The COMMENT variable immediately follows the
MAINTAINER variable in the Makefile.

5.7.Â Licenses

Each port must document the license under which it is
available. If it is not an OSI approved license it must also
document any restrictions on redistribution.

5.7.1.Â LICENSE

A short name for the license or licenses if more than one
license apply.

If this is a license that has not been defined in the
ports framework (see TableÂ 5.6, “Predefined License List”),
the LICENSE_PERMS and
LICENSE_NAME must be set, along with either
LICENSE_FILE or
LICENSE_TEXT.
LICENSE_DISTFILES and
LICENSE_GROUPS can also be set, but are not
required.

When the README of some software
says “This software is under the terms of the GNU
Lesser General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.” but does not
provide the license file, use this:

LICENSE= LGPL21+

When the software provides the license file, use
this:

LICENSE= LGPL21+
LICENSE_FILE= ${WRKSRC}/COPYING

For the predefined licenses, the default permissions are
dist-mirror dist-sell pkg-mirror pkg-sell
auto-accept.

TableÂ 5.6.Â Predefined License List

Short Name

Name

Group

Permissions

AGPLv3

GNU Affero General Public License version
3

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

AGPLv3+

GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (or
later)

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

APACHE10

Apache License 1.0

FSF

(default)

APACHE11

Apache License 1.1

FSFOSI

(default)

APACHE20

Apache License 2.0

FSFOSI

(default)

ART10

Artistic License version 1.0

OSI

(default)

ART20

Artistic License version 2.0

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

ARTPERL10

Artistic License (perl) version 1.0

OSI

(default)

BSD

BSD license Generic Version (deprecated)

FSFOSICOPYFREE

(default)

BSD2CLAUSE

BSD 2-clause "Simplified" License

FSFOSICOPYFREE

(default)

BSD3CLAUSE

BSD 3-clause "New" or "Revised" License

FSFOSICOPYFREE

(default)

BSD4CLAUSE

BSD 4-clause "Original" or "Old" License

FSF

(default)

BSL

Boost Software License

FSFOSICOPYFREE

(default)

CC-BY-1.0

Creative Commons Attribution 1.0

Â

(default)

CC-BY-2.0

Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Â

(default)

CC-BY-2.5

Creative Commons Attribution 2.5

Â

(default)

CC-BY-3.0

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Â

(default)

CC-BY-4.0

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Â

(default)

CC-BY-NC-1.0

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial
1.0

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-2.0

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial
2.0

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-2.5

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial
2.5

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-3.0

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial
3.0

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-4.0

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial
4.0

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-ND-1.0

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No
Derivatives 1.0

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No
Derivatives 2.0

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-ND-2.5

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No
Derivatives 2.5

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-ND-3.0

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No
Derivatives 3.0

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No
Derivatives 4.0

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-SA-1.0

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share
Alike 1.0

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share
Alike 2.0

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-SA-2.5

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share
Alike 2.5

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share
Alike 3.0

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share
Alike 4.0

Â

dist-mirrorpkg-mirrorauto-accept

CC-BY-ND-1.0

Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives
1.0

Â

(default)

CC-BY-ND-2.0

Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives
2.0

Â

(default)

CC-BY-ND-2.5

Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives
2.5

Â

(default)

CC-BY-ND-3.0

Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives
3.0

Â

(default)

CC-BY-ND-4.0

Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives
4.0

Â

(default)

CC-BY-SA-1.0

Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike
1.0

Â

(default)

CC-BY-SA-2.0

Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike
2.0

Â

(default)

CC-BY-SA-2.5

Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike
2.5

Â

(default)

CC-BY-SA-3.0

Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike
3.0

Â

(default)

CC-BY-SA-4.0

Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike
4.0

Â

(default)

CC0-1.0

Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal

FSFGPLCOPYFREE

(default)

CDDL

Common Development and Distribution
License

FSFOSI

(default)

CPAL-1.0

Common Public Attribution License

FSFOSI

(default)

ClArtistic

Clarified Artistic License

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

EPL

Eclipse Public License

FSFOSI

(default)

GFDL

GNU Free Documentation License

FSF

(default)

GMGPL

GNAT Modified General Public License

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

GPLv1

GNU General Public License version 1

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

GPLv1+

GNU General Public License version 1 (or
later)

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

GPLv2

GNU General Public License version 2

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

GPLv2+

GNU General Public License version 2 (or
later)

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

GPLv3

GNU General Public License version 3

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

GPLv3+

GNU General Public License version 3 (or
later)

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

GPLv3RLE

GNU GPL version 3 Runtime Library
Exception

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

GPLv3RLE+

GNU GPL version 3 Runtime Library Exception (or
later)

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

ISCL

Internet Systems Consortium License

FSFGPLOSICOPYFREE

(default)

LGPL20

GNU Library General Public License version
2.0

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

LGPL20+

GNU Library General Public License version 2.0
(or later)

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

LGPL21

GNU Lesser General Public License version
2.1

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

LGPL21+

GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 (or
later)

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

LGPL3

GNU Lesser General Public License version
3

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

LGPL3+

GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 (or
later)

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

LPPL10

LaTeX Project Public License version 1.0

FSFOSI

dist-mirrordist-sell

LPPL11

LaTeX Project Public License version 1.1

FSFOSI

dist-mirrordist-sell

LPPL12

LaTeX Project Public License version 1.2

FSFOSI

dist-mirrordist-sell

LPPL13

LaTeX Project Public License version 1.3

FSFOSI

dist-mirrordist-sell

LPPL13a

LaTeX Project Public License version 1.3a

FSFOSI

dist-mirrordist-sell

LPPL13b

LaTeX Project Public License version 1.3b

FSFOSI

dist-mirrordist-sell

LPPL13c

LaTeX Project Public License version 1.3c

FSFOSI

dist-mirrordist-sell

MIT

MIT license / X11 license

COPYFREEFSFGPLOSI

(default)

MPL10

Mozilla Public License version 1.0

FSFOSI

(default)

MPL11

Mozilla Public License version 1.1

FSFOSI

(default)

MPL20

Mozilla Public License version 2.0

FSFOSI

(default)

NCSA

University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source
License

COPYFREEFSFGPLOSI

(default)

NONE

No license specified

Â

none

OFL10

SIL Open Font License version 1.0
(http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)

FONTS

(default)

OFL11

SIL Open Font License version 1.1
(http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)

FONTS

(default)

OWL

Open Works License (owl.apotheon.org)

COPYFREE

(default)

OpenSSL

OpenSSL License

FSF

(default)

PD

Public Domain

GPLCOPYFREE

(default)

PHP202

PHP License version 2.02

FSFOSI

(default)

PHP30

PHP License version 3.0

FSFOSI

(default)

PHP301

PHP License version 3.01

FSFOSI

(default)

PSFL

Python Software Foundation License

FSFGPLOSI

(default)

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL Licence

FSFGPLOSICOPYFREE

(default)

RUBY

Ruby License

FSF

(default)

UNLICENSE

The Unlicense

COPYFREEFSFGPL

(default)

WTFPL

Do What the Fuck You Want To Public License
version 2

GPLFSFCOPYFREE

(default)

WTFPL1

Do What the Fuck You Want To Public License
version 1

GPLFSFCOPYFREE

(default)

ZLIB

zlib License

GPLFSFOSI

(default)

ZPL21

Zope Public License version 2.1

GPLOSI

(default)

5.7.2.Â LICENSE_PERMS and
LICENSE_PERMS_NAME

Permissions. use none if empty.

License Permissions List

dist-mirror

Redistribution of the distribution files is
permitted. The distribution files will be added to the
FreeBSD MASTER_SITE_BACKUPCDN.

no-dist-mirror

Redistribution of the distribution files is
prohibited. This is equivalent to setting RESTRICTED.
The distribution files will not be
added to the FreeBSD MASTER_SITE_BACKUPCDN.

dist-sell

Selling of distribution files is permitted. The
distribution files will be present on the installer
images.

no-dist-sell

Selling of distribution files is prohibited. This
is equivalent to setting NO_CDROM.

pkg-mirror

Free redistribution of package is permitted. The
package will be distributed on the FreeBSD package
CDNhttps://pkg.freebsd.org/.

Selling of package is permitted. The package will
be present on the installer images.

no-pkg-sell

Selling of package is prohibited. This is
equivalent to setting NO_CDROM.
The package will not be present on
the installer images.

auto-accept

License is accepted by default. Prompts to accept a
license are not displayed unless the user has defined
LICENSES_ASK. Use this unless the
license states the user must accept the terms of the
license.

no-auto-accept

License is not accepted by default. The user will
always be asked to confirm the acceptance of this
license. This must be used if the license states that
the user must accept its terms.

When both
permission and
no-permission is
present the
no-permission
will cancel
permission.

When
permission is
not present, it is considered to be a
no-permission.

ExampleÂ 5.25.Â Nonstandard License

Read the terms of the license and translate those using
the available permissions.

LICENSE= UNKNOWN
LICENSE_NAME= unknown
LICENSE_TEXT= This program is NOT in public domain.\
It can be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes only.
LICENSE_PERMS= dist-mirror no-dist-sell pkg-mirror no-pkg-sell auto-accept

ExampleÂ 5.26.Â Standard and Nonstandard Licenses

Read the terms of the license and express those using
the available permissions. In case of doubt, please ask for
guidance on the FreeBSD ports mailing list.

When the permissions of the GPLv2 and the UNKNOWN
licenses are mixed, the port ends up with
dist-mirror dist-sell pkg-mirror pkg-sell
auto-accept dist-mirror no-dist-sell pkg-mirror
no-pkg-sell auto-accept. The
no-permissions
cancel the permissions. The
resulting list of permissions are dist-mirror
pkg-mirror auto-accept. The distribution
files and the packages will not be available on the
installer images.

5.7.4.Â LICENSE_NAME and
LICENSE_NAME_NAME

5.7.5.Â LICENSE_FILE and
LICENSE_FILE_NAME

Full path to the file containing the license text, usually
${WRKSRC}/some/file. If the file is not
in the distfile, and its content is too long to be put in
LICENSE_TEXT,
put it in a new file in
${FILESDIR}.

ExampleÂ 5.28.Â LICENSE_FILE

LICENSE= GPLv3+
LICENSE_FILE= ${WRKSRC}/COPYING

5.7.6.Â LICENSE_TEXT and
LICENSE_TEXT_NAME

Text to use as a license. Useful when the license is not
in the distribution files and its text is short.

ExampleÂ 5.29.Â LICENSE_TEXT

LICENSE= UNKNOWN
LICENSE_NAME= unknown
LICENSE_TEXT= This program is NOT in public domain.\
It can be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes only,\
and THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THIS PROGRAM.
LICENSE_PERMS= dist-mirror no-dist-sell pkg-mirror no-pkg-sell auto-accept

5.7.7.Â LICENSE_DISTFILES and
LICENSE_DISTFILES_NAME

The distribution files to which the licenses apply.
Defaults to all the distribution files.

ExampleÂ 5.30.Â LICENSE_DISTFILES

Used when the distribution files do not all have the
same license. For example, one has a code license, and
another has some artwork that cannot be
redistributed:

5.8.Â PORTSCOUT

PORTSCOUT defines special
conditions within which the Portscout
distfile scanner is restricted.

Situations where PORTSCOUT
is set include:

When distfiles have to be ignored, whether for specific
versions, or specific minor revisions. For example, to
exclude version 8.2 from distfile
version checks because it is known to be broken, add:

PORTSCOUT= ignore:8.2

When specific versions or specific major and minor
revisions of a distfile must be checked. For example, if
only version 0.6.4 must be
monitored because newer versions have compatibility issues
with FreeBSD, add:

PORTSCOUT= limit:^0\.6\.4

When URLs listing the available versions differ from the
download URLs. For example, to limit distfile version
checks to the download page for the
databases/pgtune port,
add:

PORTSCOUT= site:http://pgfoundry.org/frs/?group_id=1000416

5.9.Â Dependencies

Many ports depend on other ports. This is a very convenient
feature of most Unix-like operating systems, including FreeBSD.
Multiple ports can share a common dependency, rather than
bundling that dependency with every port or package that needs
it. There are seven variables that can be used to ensure that
all the required bits will be on the user's machine. There are
also some pre-supported dependency variables for common cases,
plus a few more to control the behavior of dependencies.

5.9.1.Â LIB_DEPENDS

This variable specifies the shared libraries this port
depends on. It is a list of
lib:dir
tuples where lib is the name of
the shared library, dir is the
directory in which to find it in case it is not available.
For example,

LIB_DEPENDS= libjpeg.so:graphics/jpeg

will check for a shared jpeg library with any version, and
descend into the graphics/jpeg
subdirectory of the ports tree to build and install it if it
is not found.

The dependency is checked twice, once from within the
build target and then from within
the install target. Also, the name
of the dependency is put into the package so that
pkg install (see pkg-install(8)) will
automatically install it if it is not on the user's
system.

5.9.2.Â RUN_DEPENDS

This variable specifies executables or files this port
depends on during run-time. It is a list of
path:dir[:target]
tuples where path is the name of
the executable or file, dir is the
directory in which to find it in case it is not available, and
target is the target to call in
that directory. If path starts
with a slash (/), it is treated as a file
and its existence is tested with test -e;
otherwise, it is assumed to be an executable, and
which -s is used to determine if the
program exists in the search path.

will check if the file or directory
/usr/local/news/bin/innd exists, and
build and install it from the news/inn
subdirectory of the ports tree if it is not found. It will
also see if an executable called xmlcatmgr
is in the search path, and descend into
textproc/xmlcatmgr
to build and install it if it is not found.

Note:

In this case, innd is actually an
executable; if an executable is in a place that is not
expected to be in the search path, use the full
pathname.

Note:

The official search PATH used on the
ports build cluster is

/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin

The dependency is checked from within the
install target. Also, the name of
the dependency is put into the package so that
pkg install (see pkg-install(8)) will
automatically install it if it is not on the user's system.
The target part can be omitted if
it is the same as DEPENDS_TARGET.

A quite common situation is when
RUN_DEPENDS is literally the same as
BUILD_DEPENDS, especially if ported
software is written in a scripted language or if it requires
the same build and run-time environment. In this case, it is
both tempting and intuitive to directly assign one to the
other:

RUN_DEPENDS= ${BUILD_DEPENDS}

However, such assignment can pollute run-time
dependencies with entries not defined in the port's original
BUILD_DEPENDS. This happens because of
make(1)'s lazy evaluation of variable assignment.
Consider a Makefile with
USE_*,
which are processed by ports/Mk/bsd.*.mk
to augment initial build dependencies. For example,
USES= gmake adds
devel/gmake to
BUILD_DEPENDS. To prevent such additional
dependencies from polluting RUN_DEPENDS,
create another variable with the current content of
BUILD_DEPENDS and assign it to both
BUILD_DEPENDS and
RUN_DEPENDS:

Warning:

USES cannot be assigned after
inclusion of bsd.port.pre.mk.

5.9.8.Â USE_*

Several variables exist to define common dependencies
shared by many ports. Their use is optional, but helps to
reduce the verbosity of the port
Makefiles. Each of them is styled as
USE_*. These
variables may be used only in the port
Makefiles and
ports/Mk/bsd.*.mk. They are not meant
for user-settable options — use
PORT_OPTIONS for that purpose.

Note:

It is always incorrect to set any
USE_* in
/etc/make.conf. For instance,
setting

USE_GCC=X.Y

(where X.Y is version number) would add a dependency
on gccXY for every port, including
lang/gccXY itself!

TableÂ 5.7.Â USE_*

Variable

Means

USE_GCC

The port requires GCC (gcc or
g++) to build. Some ports need any
GCC version, some require modern, recent versions. It
is typically set to any (in this
case, GCC from base would be used on versions of FreeBSD
that still have it, or lang/gcc
port would be installed when default C/C++ compiler is
Clang); or yes (means always use
stable, modern GCC from lang/gcc
port). The exact version can also be specified, with
a value such as 4.7. The minimal
required version can be specified as
4.6+. The GCC from the base system
is used when it satisfies the requested version,
otherwise an appropriate compiler is built from the
port, and CC and
CXX are adjusted
accordingly.

5.9.9.Â Minimal Version of a Dependency

A minimal version of a dependency can be specified in any
*_DEPENDS
except LIB_DEPENDS using this
syntax:

p5-Spiffy>=0.26:devel/p5-Spiffy

The first field contains a dependent package name, which
must match the entry in the package database, a comparison
sign, and a package version. The dependency is satisfied if
p5-Spiffy-0.26 or newer is installed on the machine.

5.9.10.Â Notes on Dependencies

As mentioned above, the default target to call when a
dependency is required is
DEPENDS_TARGET. It defaults to
install. This is a user variable; it is
never defined in a port's Makefile. If
the port needs a special way to handle a dependency, use the
:target part of
*_DEPENDS
instead of redefining
DEPENDS_TARGET.

When running make clean, the port
dependencies are automatically cleaned too. If this is not
desirable, define
NOCLEANDEPENDS in the environment. This
may be particularly desirable if the port has something that
takes a long time to rebuild in its dependency list, such as
KDE, GNOME or Mozilla.

To depend on another port unconditionally, use the
variable ${NONEXISTENT} as the first field
of BUILD_DEPENDS or
RUN_DEPENDS. Use this only when
the source of the other port is needed. Compilation time can
be saved by specifying the target too. For
instance

BUILD_DEPENDS= ${NONEXISTENT}:graphics/jpeg:extract

will always descend to the jpeg port
and extract it.

5.9.11.Â Circular Dependencies Are Fatal

Important:

Do not introduce any circular dependencies into the
ports tree!

The ports building technology does not tolerate circular
dependencies. If one is introduced, someone, somewhere in the
world, will have their FreeBSD installation broken
almost immediately, with many others quickly to follow. These
can really be hard to detect. If in doubt, before making
that change, make sure to run:
cd /usr/ports; make index. That process
can be quite slow on older machines, but it may be able to
save a large number of people, including yourself,
a lot of grief in the process.

5.9.12.Â Problems Caused by Automatic Dependencies

Dependencies must be declared either explicitly or by
using the
OPTIONS framework.
Using other methods like automatic detection complicates
indexing, which causes problems for port and package
management.

The problem with trying to automatically add dependencies
is that files and settings outside an individual port can
change at any time. For example: an index is built, then a
batch of ports are installed. But one of the ports installs
the tested file. The index is now incorrect, because an
installed port unexpectedly has a new dependency. The index
may still be wrong even after rebuilding if other ports also
determine their need for dependencies based on the existence
of other files.

Testing option variables is the correct method. It will
not cause inconsistencies in the index of a batch of ports,
provided the options were defined prior to the index build.
Simple scripts can then be used to automate the building,
installation, and updating of these ports and their
packages.

5.9.13.Â USE_* and
WANT_*

USE_* are
set by the port maintainer to define software on which this
port depends. A port that needs Firefox would set

USE_FIREFOX= yes

Some USE_*
can accept version numbers or other parameters. For example,
a port that requires Apache 2.2 would set

USE_APACHE= 22

For more control over dependencies in some cases,
WANT_* are
available to more precisely specify what is needed. For
example, consider the mail/squirrelmail port. This
port needs some PHP modules, which are listed in
USE_PHP:

USE_PHP= session mhash gettext mbstring pcre openssl xml

Those modules may be available in CLI or web versions, so
the web version is selected with
WANT_*:

WANT_PHP_WEB= yes

Available
USE_* and
WANT_* are
defined in the files in
/usr/ports/Mk.

5.10.Â Slave Ports and MASTERDIR

If the port needs to build slightly different versions of
packages by having a variable (for instance, resolution, or
paper size) take different values, create one subdirectory per
package to make it easier for users to see what to do, but try
to share as many files as possible between ports. Typically, by
using variables cleverly, only a very short
Makefile is needed in all but one of the
directories. In the sole Makefile, use
MASTERDIR to specify the directory where the
rest of the files are. Also, use a variable as part of PKGNAMESUFFIX
so the packages will have different names.

This will be best demonstrated by an example. This is part
of print/pkfonts300/Makefile;

(print/pkfonts118/Makefile,
print/pkfonts600/Makefile, and all the
other are similar).
MASTERDIR definition tells
bsd.port.mk that the regular set of
subdirectories like FILESDIR and
SCRIPTDIR are to be found under
pkfonts300. The
RESOLUTION=360 line will override the
RESOLUTION=300 line in
pkfonts300/Makefile and the port will be
built with resolution set to 360.

5.11.Â Man Pages

If the port anchors its man tree somewhere other than
PREFIX, use
MANDIRS to specify those directories. Note
that the files corresponding to manual pages must be placed in
pkg-plist along with the rest of the files.
The purpose of MANDIRS is to enable automatic
compression of manual pages, therefore the file names are
suffixed with .gz.

5.12.Â Info Files

If the package needs to install GNU info
files, list them in INFO (without the
trailing .info), one entry per document.
These files are assumed to be installed to
PREFIX/INFO_PATH. Change
INFO_PATH if the package uses a different
location. However, this is not recommended. These entries
contain just the path relative to
PREFIX/INFO_PATH. For example,
lang/gcc34 installs info files to
PREFIX/INFO_PATH/gcc34, and
INFO will be something like this:

INFO= gcc34/cpp gcc34/cppinternals gcc34/g77 ...

Appropriate installation/de-installation code will be
automatically added to the temporary
pkg-plist before package
registration.

5.13.Â Makefile Options

Many applications can be built with optional or differing
configurations. Examples include choice of natural (human)
language, GUI versus command-line, or type of database to
support. Users may need a different configuration than the
default, so the ports system provides hooks the port author can
use to control which variant will be built. Supporting these
options properly will make users happy, and effectively provide
two or more ports for the price of one.

5.13.1.Â OPTIONS

5.13.1.1.Â Background

OPTIONS_*
give the user installing the port a dialog showing the
available options, and then saves those options to
${PORT_DBDIR}/${OPTIONS_NAME}/options.
The next time the port is built, the options are
reused. PORT_DBDIR defaults to
/var/db/ports.
OPTIONS_NAME is to the port origin with
an underscore as the space separator, for example, for
dns/bind99 it will be
dns_bind99.

When the user runs make config (or
runs make build for the first time), the
framework checks for
${PORT_DBDIR}/${OPTIONS_NAME}/options.
If that file does not exist, the values of
OPTIONS_*
are used, and a dialog box is
displayed where the options can be enabled or disabled.
Then options is saved and the
configured variables are used when building the port.

If a new version of the port adds new
OPTIONS, the dialog will be presented to
the user with the saved values of old
OPTIONS prefilled.

make showconfig shows the saved
configuration. Use make rmconfig
to remove the saved configuration.

5.13.1.2.Â Syntax

OPTIONS_DEFINE contains a list of
OPTIONS to be used. These are
independent of each other and are not grouped:

OPTIONS_DEFINE= OPT1 OPT2

Once defined, OPTIONS are
described (optional, but strongly recommended):

ports/Mk/bsd.options.desc.mk
has descriptions for many common OPTIONS.
While often useful, override them if the
description is insufficient for the port.

Tip:

When describing options, view it from the
perspective of the user: “What functionality does it
change?”
and “Why would I want to enable this?”
Do not just repeat the name. For example, describing the
NLS option as
“include NLS support” does not help the user,
who can already see the option name but may not know what
it means. Describing it as “Native Language Support
via gettext utilities” is much more
helpful.

Important:

Option names are always in all uppercase. They
cannot use mixed case or lowercase.

OPTIONS can be grouped as radio
choices, where only one choice from each group is
allowed:

OPTIONS_SINGLE= SG1
OPTIONS_SINGLE_SG1= OPT3 OPT4

Warning:

There must be one of each
OPTIONS_SINGLE group selected at all
times for the options to be valid. One option of each
group must be added to
OPTIONS_DEFAULT.

OPTIONS can be grouped as radio
choices, where none or only one choice from each group
is allowed:

OPTIONS_RADIO= RG1
OPTIONS_RADIO_RG1= OPT7 OPT8

OPTIONS can also be grouped as
“multiple-choice” lists, where
at least one option must be
enabled:

OPTIONS_MULTI= MG1
OPTIONS_MULTI_MG1= OPT5 OPT6

OPTIONS can also be grouped as
“multiple-choice” lists, where none or any
option can be enabled:

OPTIONS_GROUP= GG1
OPTIONS_GROUP_GG1= OPT9 OPT10

OPTIONS are unset by default,
unless they are listed in
OPTIONS_DEFAULT:

OPTIONS_DEFAULT= OPT1 OPT3 OPT6

OPTIONS definitions must appear
before the inclusion of
bsd.port.options.mk.
PORT_OPTIONS values can only be tested
after the inclusion of
bsd.port.options.mk. Inclusion of
bsd.port.pre.mk can be used instead,
too, and is still widely used in ports written before the
introduction of bsd.port.options.mk.
But be aware that some variables will not work as expected
after the inclusion of bsd.port.pre.mk,
typically some
USE_*
flags.

5.13.1.3.Â Default Options

Note:

There is no need to add these to
OPTIONS_DEFAULT. To have them active,
and show up in the options selection dialog, however, they
must be added to OPTIONS_DEFINE.

5.13.2.Â Feature Auto-Activation

When using a GNU configure script, keep an eye on which
optional features are activated by auto-detection. Explicitly
disable optional features that are not needed by
adding --without-xxx or
--disable-xxx in
CONFIGURE_ARGS.

In the example above, imagine a library libfoo is
installed on the system. The user does not want this
application to use libfoo, so he toggled the option off in the
make config dialog. But the application's
configure script detects the library present in the system and
includes its support in the resulting executable. Now when
the user decides to remove libfoo from the system, the ports
system does not protest (no dependency on libfoo was recorded)
but the application breaks.

Note:

The value of OPTIONS_SUB is
ignored. Setting it to any value will add
PLIST_SUB and
SUB_LIST entries for
all options.

5.13.3.2.Â OPT_USE
and
OPT_USE_OFF

When option OPT is selected,
for each
key=value
pair in
OPT_USE,
value is appended to the
corresponding
USE_KEY. If
value has spaces in it, replace
them with commas and they will be changed back to spaces
during processing.
OPT_USE_OFF
works the same way, but when OPT is
not selected. For example:

5.13.3.3.Â CONFIGURE_ARGS Helpers

5.13.3.3.1.Â OPT_CONFIGURE_ENABLE

When option OPT is
selected, for each entry in
OPT_CONFIGURE_ENABLE
then
--enable-entry
is appended to CONFIGURE_ARGS. When
option OPT is
not selected,
--disable-entry
is appended to CONFIGURE_ARGS. An
optional argument can be specified with an
= symbol. This argument is only
appended to the
--enable-entry
configure option. For example:

5.13.3.3.2.Â OPT_CONFIGURE_WITH

When option OPT is
selected, for each entry in
OPT_CONFIGURE_WITH
then
--with-entry
is appended to CONFIGURE_ARGS. When
option OPT is
not selected,
--without-entry
is appended to CONFIGURE_ARGS. An
optional argument can be specified with an
= symbol. This argument is only
appended to the
--with-entry
configure option. For example:

Tip:

5.13.3.4.2.Â OPT_CMAKE_BOOL
and
OPT_CMAKE_BOOL_OFF

When option OPT is
selected, for each entry in
OPT_CMAKE_BOOL
then
-Dentry:BOOL=true
is appended to CMAKE_ARGS. When option
OPT is not
selected,
-Dentry:BOOL=false
is appended to CONFIGURE_ARGS.
OPT_CMAKE_BOOL_OFF
is the oposite,
-Dentry:BOOL=false
is appended to CMAKE_ARGS when the
option is selected, and
-Dentry:BOOL=true
when the option is not selected. For
example:

5.13.3.5.2.Â OPT_MESON_TRUE
and
OPT_MESON_FALSE

When option OPT is
selected, for each entry in
OPT_MESON_TRUE
then
-Dentry=true
is appended to CMAKE_ARGS. When option
OPT is not
selected,
-Dentry=false
is appended to CONFIGURE_ARGS.
OPT_MESON_FALSE
is the oposite,
-Dentry=false
is appended to CMAKE_ARGS when the
option is selected, and
-Dentry=true
when the option is not selected. For
example:

5.13.3.5.3.Â OPT_MESON_YES
and
OPT_MESON_NO

When option OPT is
selected, for each entry in
OPT_MESON_YES
then
-Dentry=yes
is appended to CMAKE_ARGS. When option
OPT is not
selected,
-Dentry=no
is appended to CONFIGURE_ARGS.
OPT_MESON_NO
is the oposite,
-Dentry=no
is appended to CMAKE_ARGS when the
option is selected, and
-Dentry=yes
when the option is not selected. For
example:

Warning:

When option OPT is selected,
and OPT_VARS
defined,
key=value
and
key+=value
pairs are evaluated from
OPT_VARS. An
= cause the existing value of
KEY to be overwritten, an
+= appends to the value.
OPT_VARS_OFF
works the same way, but when OPT is
not selected.

Important:

Values containing whitespace must be enclosed in
quotes:

OPT_VARS= foo="bar baz"

This is due to the way make(1) variable expansion
deals with whitespace. When OPT_VARS= foo=bar
baz is expanded, the variable ends up
containing two strings, foo=bar and
baz. But the submitter probably
intended there to be only one string, foo=bar
baz. Quoting the value prevents whitespace
from being used as a delimiter.

Also, do not add extra spaces
after the
var= sign
and before the value, it would also be split into two
strings. This will not work:

OPT_VARS= foo= bar

5.13.3.10.Â Dependencies,
OPT_DEPTYPE
and
OPT_DEPTYPE_OFF

For any of these dependency types:

PKG_DEPENDS

EXTRACT_DEPENDS

PATCH_DEPENDS

FETCH_DEPENDS

BUILD_DEPENDS

LIB_DEPENDS

RUN_DEPENDS

When option OPT is
selected, the value of
OPT_DEPTYPE,
if defined, is appended to
DEPTYPE.
OPT_DEPTYPE_OFF
works the same, but when OPT is
not
selected. For example:

5.14.Â Specifying the Working Directory

Each port is extracted into a working directory, which must
be writable. The ports system defaults to having
DISTFILES unpack in to a directory called
${DISTNAME}. In other words, if the
Makefile has:

PORTNAME= foo
DISTVERSION= 1.0

then the port's distribution files contain a top-level
directory, foo-1.0, and the rest of the
files are located under that directory.

A number of variables can be overridden if that is
not the case.

5.14.1.Â WRKSRC

The variable lists the name of the directory that is
created when the application's distfiles are extracted. If
our previous example extracted into a directory called
foo (and not
foo-1.0) write:

WRKSRC= ${WRKDIR}/foo

or possibly

WRKSRC= ${WRKDIR}/${PORTNAME}

5.14.2.Â WRKSRC_SUBDIR

If the source files needed for the port are in a
subdirectory of the extracted distribution file, set
WRKSRC_SUBDIR to that directory.

WRKSRC_SUBDIR= src

5.14.3.Â NO_WRKSUBDIR

If the port does not extract in to a subdirectory at all,
then set NO_WRKSUBDIR to
indicate that.

NO_WRKSUBDIR= yes

Note:

Because WRKDIR is the only directory
that is supposed to be writable during the build, and is
used to store many files recording the status of the build,
the port's extraction will be forced into a
subdirectory.

5.15.Â Conflict Handling

There are three different variables to register a conflict
between packages and ports: CONFLICTS,
CONFLICTS_INSTALL and
CONFLICTS_BUILD.

Note:

When removing one of several conflicting ports, it is
advisable to retain CONFLICTS in
those other ports for a few months to cater for users who only
update once in a while.

CONFLICTS_INSTALL

If the package cannot coexist with other
packages (because of file conflicts, runtime
incompatibilities, etc.).
CONFLICTS_INSTALL check is done after the
build stage and prior to the install stage.

CONFLICTS_BUILD

If the port cannot be built when other specific ports
are already installed. Build conflicts are not recorded
in the resulting package.

CONFLICTS

If the port cannot be built if a certain port is
already installed and the resulting package cannot coexist
with the other package. CONFLICTS
check is done prior to the build stage and prior to the
install stage.

The most common content of one of these variable is the
package base of another port. The package base is the package
name without the appended version, it can be obtained by running
make -V PKGBASE.

ExampleÂ 5.42.Â Basic usage of
CONFLICTS*

dns/bind99 cannot be
installed if dns/bind910 is
present because they install same files. First gather the
package base to use:

Sometime, only some version of another port is incompatible,
in this case, use the full package name, with the version, and
use shell globs, like * and
? to make sure all possible versions are
matched.

The first entry match versions 2.0
through 2.3, the second all the revisions
of 2.4.0, the third the exact
2.4.1 version, and the last the first and
second revisions of the 2.4.1
version.

deskutils/gnotime does not
have any conflicts line because its current version does not
conflict with anything else.

5.16.Â Installing Files

Important:

The install phase is very
important to the end user because it
adds files to their system. All the additional commands run
in the port Makefile's
*-install targets should be
echoed to the screen. Do not silence
these commands with
@ or .SILENT.

5.16.1.Â INSTALL_*
Macros

Use the macros provided in
bsd.port.mk to ensure correct modes of
files in the port's *-install
targets. Set ownership directly in
pkg-plist with the corresponding entries,
such as
@(owner,group,),
@owner owner,
and @group
group.
These operators work until overridden, or until the end
of pkg-plist, so remember to reset
them after they are no longer needed. The default ownership
is root:wheel. See SectionÂ 8.6.13, “Base Keywords” for more information.

INSTALL_PROGRAM is a command to
install binary executables.

INSTALL_SCRIPT is a command to
install executable scripts.

INSTALL_LIB is a command to install
shared libraries (but not static libraries).

INSTALL_KLD is a command to
install kernel loadable modules. Some architectures
do not like having the modules stripped, so
use this command instead of
INSTALL_PROGRAM.

INSTALL_DATA is a command to
install sharable data, including static libraries.

INSTALL_MAN is a command to
install manpages and other documentation (it does not
compress anything).

These variables are set to the install(1) command
with the appropriate flags for each situation.

Important:

Do not use INSTALL_LIB to install
static libraries, because stripping them renders them
useless. Use INSTALL_DATA
instead.

5.16.2.Â Stripping Binaries and Shared Libraries

Installed binaries should be stripped. Do not strip
binaries manually unless absolutely required. The
INSTALL_PROGRAM macro installs and
strips a binary at the same time. The
INSTALL_LIB macro does the same thing to
shared libraries.

When a file must be stripped, but neither
INSTALL_PROGRAM nor
INSTALL_LIB macros are desirable,
${STRIP_CMD} strips the program or
shared library. This is typically done within the
post-install target. For
example:

Use file(1) on a file to determine if it has been
stripped. Binaries are reported by file(1) as
stripped, or
not stripped. Additionally, strip(1)
will detect programs that have already been stripped and exit
cleanly.

5.16.3.Â Installing a Whole Tree of Files

Sometimes, a large number of files must be installed while
preserving their hierarchical organization. For example,
copying over a whole directory tree from
WRKSRC to a target directory under
PREFIX. Note that
PREFIX, EXAMPLESDIR,
DATADIR, and other path variables must
always be prepended with STAGEDIR to
respect staging (see SectionÂ 6.1, “Staging”).

Two macros exist for this situation. The advantage of
using these macros instead of cp is that
they guarantee proper file ownership and permissions on target
files. The first macro, COPYTREE_BIN, will
set all the installed files to be executable, thus being
suitable for installing into PREFIX/bin.
The second macro, COPYTREE_SHARE, does not
set executable permissions on files, and is therefore suitable
for installing files under PREFIX/share
target.

These macros do not add the installed files to
pkg-plist. They must be added manually.
For optional documentation (PORTDOCS, see
SectionÂ 5.16.4, “Install Additional Documentation”) and examples
(PORTEXAMPLES), the
%%PORTDOCS%% or
%%PORTEXAMPLES%% prefixes must be prepended
in pkg-plist.

5.16.4.Â Install Additional Documentation

If the software has some documentation other than the
standard man and info pages that is useful for the
user, install it under DOCSDIR
This can be done, like the previous item, in the
post-install target.

Create a new directory for the port. The directory name
is DOCSDIR. This usually equals
PORTNAME. However, if the user
might want different versions of the port to be installed at
the same time, the whole
PKGNAME can be used.

Since only the files listed in
pkg-plist are installed, it is safe to
always install documentation to STAGEDIR
(see SectionÂ 6.1, “Staging”). Hence .if
blocks are only needed when the installed files are large
enough to cause significant I/O overhead.

Here are some handy variables and how they are expanded by
default when used in the Makefile:

DATADIR gets expanded to
PREFIX/share/PORTNAME.

DATADIR_REL gets expanded to
share/PORTNAME.

DOCSDIR gets expanded to
PREFIX/share/doc/PORTNAME.

DOCSDIR_REL gets expanded to
share/doc/PORTNAME.

EXAMPLESDIR gets expanded to
PREFIX/share/examples/PORTNAME.

EXAMPLESDIR_REL gets expanded to
share/examples/PORTNAME.

Note:

The DOCS option only controls
additional documentation installed in
DOCSDIR. It does not apply to standard
man pages and info pages. Things installed in
EXAMPLESDIR are controlled by
the EXAMPLES option.

These variables are exported to
PLIST_SUB. Their values will appear there
as pathnames relative to PREFIX if
possible. That is, share/doc/PORTNAME
will be substituted for %%DOCSDIR%% in the
packing list by default, and so on. (See more on
pkg-plist substitution
here.)

All conditionally installed documentation files and
directories are included in
pkg-plist with the
%%PORTDOCS%% prefix, for example:

%%PORTDOCS%%%%DOCSDIR%%/AUTHORS
%%PORTDOCS%%%%DOCSDIR%%/CONTACT

As an alternative to enumerating the documentation files
in pkg-plist, a port can set the variable
PORTDOCS to a list of file names and shell
glob patterns to add to the final packing list. The names
will be relative to DOCSDIR. Therefore, a
port that utilizes PORTDOCS, and uses a
non-default location for its documentation, must set
DOCSDIR accordingly. If a directory is
listed in PORTDOCS or matched by a glob
pattern from this variable, the entire subtree of contained
files and directories will be registered in the final packing
list. If the DOCS option has been unset
then files and directories listed in
PORTDOCS would not be installed or added to
port packing list. Installing the documentation at
PORTDOCS as shown above remains up to the
port itself. A typical example of utilizing
PORTDOCS:

PORTDOCS= README.* ChangeLog docs/*

Note:

The equivalents of PORTDOCS for files
installed under DATADIR and
EXAMPLESDIR are
PORTDATA and
PORTEXAMPLES, respectively.

The contents of pkg-message are
displayed upon installation. See
the section on using
pkg-message for details.
pkg-message does not need to be added
to pkg-plist.

5.16.5.Â Subdirectories Under PREFIX

Try to let the port put things in the right subdirectories
of PREFIX. Some ports lump everything and
put it in the subdirectory with the port's name, which is
incorrect. Also, many ports put everything except binaries,
header files and manual pages in a subdirectory of
lib, which does not work well with the
BSD paradigm. Many of the files must be moved to one of these
directories: etc (setup/configuration
files), libexec (executables started
internally), sbin (executables for
superusers/managers), info (documentation
for info browser) or share (architecture
independent files). See hier(7) for details; the rules
governing /usr pretty much apply to
/usr/local too. The exception are ports
dealing with USENET “news”. They may use
PREFIX/news as a destination for their
files.

This section explains the most common things to consider when
creating a port.

6.1.Â Staging

bsd.port.mk expects ports to work
with a “stage directory”. This means that a port
must not install files directly to the regular destination
directories (that is, under PREFIX, for
example) but instead into a separate directory from which the
package is then built. In many cases, this does not require
root privileges, making it possible to build packages as an
unprivileged user. With staging, the port is built and
installed into the stage directory,
STAGEDIR. A package is created from the
stage directory and then installed on the system. Automake
tools refer to this concept as DESTDIR, but
in FreeBSD, DESTDIR has a different meaning
(see SectionÂ 10.4, “PREFIX and
DESTDIR”).

Note:

No port really needs to be root. It
can mostly be avoided by using USES=uidfix.
If the port still runs commands like chown(8),
chgrp(1), or forces owner or group with install(1)
then use USES=fakeroot
to fake those calls. Some patching of the port's
Makefiles will be needed.

Meta ports, or ports that do not install files themselves
but only depend on other ports, must avoid needlessly
extracting the mtree(8) to the stage directory. This is
the basic directory layout of the package, and these empty
directories will be seen as orphans. To prevent
mtree(8) extraction, add this line:

NO_MTREE= yes

Tip:

Metaports should use USES=metaport.
It sets up defaults for ports that do not fetch, build, or
install anything.

Staging is enabled by prepending
STAGEDIR to paths used in the
pre-install,
do-install, and
post-install targets (see the
examples through the book). Typically, this includes
PREFIX, ETCDIR,
DATADIR, EXAMPLESDIR,
MANPREFIX, DOCSDIR, and
so on. Directories should be created as part of the
post-install target. Avoid using
absolute paths whenever possible.

Tip:

Ports that install kernel modules must prepend
STAGEDIR to their destination, by default
/boot/modules.

6.1.1.Â Handling Symbolic Links

When creating a symlink, there are two cases, either the
source and target are both within
${PREFIX}. In that case, use
${RLN}. In the other case, if one or both
of the paths are outside of ${PREFIX}
use ${LN} -s and only prepend
${STAGEDIR} to the target's path.

6.2.Â Bundled Libraries

This section explains why bundled dependencies are
considered bad and what to do about them.

6.2.1.Â Why Bundled Libraries Are Bad

Some software requires the porter to locate third-party
libraries and add the required dependencies to the port.
Other software bundles all necessary libraries into the
distribution file. The second approach seems easier at
first, but there are some serious drawbacks:

If vulnerabilities are found in the upstream library
and fixed there, they might not be fixed in the library
bundled with the port. One reason could be that the
author is not aware of the problem. This means that the
porter must fix them, or upgrade to a non-vulnerable
version, and send a patch to the author. This all takes
time, which results in software being vulnerable longer
than necessary. This in turn makes it harder to
coordinate a fix without unnecessarily leaking
information about the vulnerability.

Bugs

This problem is similar to the problem with security
in the last paragraph, but generally less severe.

Forking

It is easier for the author to fork the upstream
library once it is bundled. While convenient on first
sight, it means that the code diverges from upstream
making it harder to address security or other problems
with the software. A reason for this is that patching
becomes harder.

Another problem of forking is that because code
diverges from upstream, bugs get solved over and over
again instead of just once at a central location. This
defeats the idea of open source software in the first
place.

Symbol collision

When a library is installed on the system, it might
collide with the bundled version. This can cause
immediate errors at compile or link time. It can also
cause errors when running the program which might be
harder to track down. The latter problem could be
caused because the versions of the two libraries are
incompatible.

Licensing

When bundling projects from different sources,
license issues can arise more easily, especially when
licenses are incompatible.

Waste of resources

Bundled libraries waste resources on several levels.
It takes longer to build the actual application,
especially if these libraries are already present on the
system. At run-time, they can take up unnecessary
memory when the system-wide library is already loaded by
one program and the bundled library is loaded by another
program.

Waste of effort

When a library needs patches for FreeBSD, these patches
have to be duplicated again in the bundled library.
This wastes developer time because the patches might not
apply cleanly. It can also be hard to notice that these
patches are required in the first place.

6.2.2.Â What to do About Bundled Libraries

Whenever possible, use the unbundled version of the
library by adding a LIB_DEPENDS to the
port. If such a port does not exist yet, consider creating
it.

Only use bundled libraries if the upstream has a
good track record on security and using unbundled versions
leads to overly complex patches.

Note:

In some very special cases, for example emulators, like
Wine, a port has to bundle
libraries, because they are in a different architecture, or
they have been modified to fit the software's use. In that
case, those libraries should not be exposed to other ports
for linking. Add BUNDLE_LIBS=yes to the
port's Makefile. This will tell
pkg(8) to not compute provided libraries. Always ask
the Ports Management Team <portmgr@FreeBSD.org> before adding this to a port.

6.3.Â Shared Libraries

If the port installs one or more shared libraries, define
a USE_LDCONFIG make variable, which will
instruct a bsd.port.mk to run
${LDCONFIG} -m on the directory
where the new library is installed (usually
PREFIX/lib) during
post-install target to register it
into the shared library cache. This variable, when defined,
will also facilitate addition of an appropriate
@exec /sbin/ldconfig -m and
@unexec /sbin/ldconfig -R pair into
pkg-plist, so that a user who
installed the package can start using the shared library
immediately and de-installation will not cause the system to
still believe the library is there.

USE_LDCONFIG= yes

The default directory can be overridden by
setting USE_LDCONFIG to a list of
directories into which shared libraries are to be installed.
For example, if the port installs shared libraries into
PREFIX/lib/foo and
PREFIX/lib/bar
use this in
Makefile:

USE_LDCONFIG= ${PREFIX}/lib/foo ${PREFIX}/lib/bar

Please double-check, often this is not necessary at all or
can be avoided through -rpath or setting
LD_RUN_PATH during linking (see
lang/mosml for an
example), or through a shell-wrapper which sets
LD_LIBRARY_PATH before invoking the binary,
like www/seamonkey
does.

When installing 32-bit libraries on 64-bit system, use
USE_LDCONFIG32 instead.

When the major library version number increments in the
update to the new port version, all other ports that link to
the affected library must have their
PORTREVISION incremented, to force
recompilation with the new library version.

6.4.Â Ports with Distribution Restrictions or Legal
Concerns

Licenses vary, and some of them place restrictions on how
the application can be packaged, whether it can be sold for
profit, and so on.

Important:

It is the responsibility of a porter to read the
licensing terms of the software and make sure that the
FreeBSD project will not be held accountable for violating
them by redistributing the source or compiled binaries
either via FTP/HTTP or CD-ROM. If in doubt, please contact
the FreeBSD ports mailing list.

In situations like this, the variables described in the
next sections can be set.

6.4.1.Â NO_PACKAGE

This variable indicates that we may not generate a
binary package of the application. For instance, the
license may disallow binary redistribution, or it may
prohibit distribution of packages created from patched
sources.

However, the port's DISTFILES may be
freely mirrored on FTP/HTTP. They may also be distributed
on a CD-ROM (or similar media) unless
NO_CDROM is set as well.

If the
binary package is not generally useful, and the application
must always be compiled from the source code, use
NO_PACKAGE. For
example, if the application has configuration information
that is site specific hard coded into it at compile time,
set NO_PACKAGE.

Set NO_PACKAGE to a string
describing the reason why the package cannot be
generated.

6.4.2.Â NO_CDROM

This variable alone indicates that, although we are
allowed to generate binary packages, we may put neither
those packages nor the port's DISTFILES
onto a CD-ROM (or similar media) for resale. However, the
binary packages and the port's DISTFILES
will still be available via FTP/HTTP.

If this variable is set along with
NO_PACKAGE, then only the port's
DISTFILES will be available, and only via
FTP/HTTP.

Set NO_CDROM to a string
describing the reason why the port cannot be redistributed
on CD-ROM. For instance, use this if the port's
license is for “non-commercial” use
only.

6.4.3.Â NOFETCHFILES

Files defined in NOFETCHFILES
are not fetchable from any of
MASTER_SITES. An example of such a file
is when the file is supplied on CD-ROM by the vendor.

Tools which check for the availability of these files
on MASTER_SITES have to ignore these
files and not report about them.

6.4.4.Â RESTRICTED

Set this variable alone if the application's license
permits neither mirroring the application's
DISTFILES nor distributing the binary
package in any way.

Do not set NO_CDROM or
NO_PACKAGE along with
RESTRICTED, since the latter variable
implies the former ones.

Set RESTRICTED to a string
describing the reason why the port cannot be redistributed.
Typically, this indicates that the port contains proprietary
software and that the user will need to manually download
the DISTFILES, possibly after registering
for the software or agreeing to accept the terms of an
EULA.

6.4.5.Â RESTRICTED_FILES

When RESTRICTED or
NO_CDROM is set, this variable defaults
to ${DISTFILES} ${PATCHFILES}, otherwise
it is empty. If only some of the distribution files are
restricted, then set this variable to list them.

6.4.6.Â LEGAL_TEXT

If the port has legal concerns not addressed by the
above variables, set LEGAL_TEXT
to a string explaining the concern. For
example, if special permission was obtained for FreeBSD to
redistribute the binary, this variable must indicate
so.

6.4.7.Â /usr/ports/LEGAL and
LEGAL

A port which sets any of the above variables must also
be added to /usr/ports/LEGAL. The
first column is a glob which matches the restricted
distfiles. The second column is the port's origin. The
third column is the output of
make -VLEGAL.

6.4.8.Â Examples

The preferred way to state "the distfiles for this port
must be fetched manually" is as follows:

.if !exists(${DISTDIR}/${DISTNAME}${EXTRACT_SUFX})
IGNORE= may not be redistributed because of licensing reasons. Please visit some-website to accept their license and download ${DISTFILES} into ${DISTDIR}
.endif

This both informs the user, and sets the proper metadata
on the user's machine for use by automated programs.

Note that this stanza must be preceded by an inclusion
of bsd.port.pre.mk.

6.5.Â Building Mechanisms

6.5.1.Â Building Ports in Parallel

The FreeBSD ports framework supports parallel building
using multiple make sub-processes, which
allows SMP systems to utilize all of
their available CPU power, allowing port
builds to be faster and more effective.

This is achieved by passing -jX flag
to make(1) running on vendor code. This is the default
build behavior of ports. Unfortunately, not all ports
handle parallel building well and it may be required to
explicitly disable this feature by adding the
MAKE_JOBS_UNSAFE=yes variable. It is
used when a port is known to be broken with
-jX.

6.5.2.Â make, gmake,
fmake, and imake

Several differing make
implementations exist. Ported software often requires a
particular implementation, like GNUmake, known in FreeBSD as
gmake, or fmake, the
legacy FreeBSD make.

If the port uses GNU make,
add gmake to USES. If
the legacy FreeBSD make is needed, add
fmake there.

MAKE_CMD can be used to reference the
specific command configured by the USES
setting in the port's Makefile. In
rare cases when more than one make
implementation is listed in USES, the
variables GMAKE (for the
GNU version) or FMAKE
(for the legacy FreeBSD version) are available.
Only use MAKE_CMD within the
application Makefiles in
WRKSRC to call the
make implementation expected by the
ported software.

If the port's source Makefile has
something other than all as the
main build target, set ALL_TARGET
accordingly. The same goes for
install and
INSTALL_TARGET.

6.5.3.Â configure Script

If the port uses the configure
script to generate Makefile from
Makefile.in, set
GNU_CONFIGURE=yes. To give
extra arguments to the configure script
(the default argument is --prefix=${PREFIX}
--infodir=${PREFIX}/${INFO_PATH}
--mandir=${MANPREFIX}/man
--build=${CONFIGURE_TARGET}), set those
extra arguments in CONFIGURE_ARGS. Extra
environment variables can be passed using
CONFIGURE_ENV.

TableÂ 6.1.Â Variables for Ports That Use
configure

Variable

Means

GNU_CONFIGURE

The port uses configure
script to prepare build.

HAS_CONFIGURE

Same as GNU_CONFIGURE,
except default configure target is not added to
CONFIGURE_ARGS.

CMake supports these
build profiles: Debug,
Release,
RelWithDebInfo and
MinSizeRel. Debug and
Release profiles respect system
*FLAGS, RelWithDebInfo
and MinSizeRel will set
CFLAGS to -O2 -g and
-Os -DNDEBUG correspondingly. The
lower-cased value of CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE is
exported to PLIST_SUB and must be
used if the port installs
*.cmake
depending on the build type (see
deskutils/strigi for an
example). Please note that some projects may define their own
build profiles and/or force particular build type by setting
CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE in
CMakeLists.txt. To make a port for such
a project respect CFLAGS and
WITH_DEBUG, the
CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE definitions must be
removed from those files.

Most CMake-based projects
support an out-of-source method of building. The
out-of-source build for a port can be requested by using the
:outsource suffix. When enabled,
CONFIGURE_WRKSRC,
BUILD_WRKSRC and
INSTALL_WRKSRC will be set to
${WRKDIR}/.build and this
directory will be used to keep all files generated during
configuration and build stages, leaving the source directory
intact.

ExampleÂ 6.3.Â USES= cmake Example

This snippet demonstrates the use of
CMake for a port.
CMAKE_SOURCE_PATH is not usually
required, but can be set when the sources are not located
in the top directory, or if only a subset of the project
is intended to be built by the port.

USES= cmake:outsource
CMAKE_SOURCE_PATH= ${WRKSRC}/subproject

ExampleÂ 6.4.Â CMAKE_ON and
CMAKE_OFF

When adding boolean values to
CMAKE_ARGS, it is easier to use the
CMAKE_ON and CMAKE_OFF
variables instead. This:

Important:

6.5.5.Â Using scons

If the port uses SCons,
define USES=scons.

To make third party SConstruct
respect everything that is passed to SCons in
the environment (that is, most importantly,
CC/CXX/CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS), patch
SConstruct so build
Environment is constructed like
this:

env = Environment(**ARGUMENTS)

It may be then modified with
env.Append and
env.Replace.

6.6.Â Using GNU Autotools

6.6.1.Â Introduction

The various GNU autotools provide an abstraction
mechanism for building a piece of software over a wide
variety of operating systems and machine architectures.
Within the Ports Collection, an individual port can make use
of these tools via a simple construct:

USE_AUTOTOOLS= tool[:env] ...

At the time of writing, tool
can be one of autoconf,
autoheader, automake,
aclocal, libtoolize.
It can also be one the older
legacy of autoconf213,
autoheader213,
automake14,
aclocal14.

env is used to specify that the
environmental variables are needed. It also adds a build
dependency on the tool. The relevant tool is
not ran as part of the
run-autotools target.

Multiple tools can be specified at once, either by
including them all on a single line, or using the
+= Makefile construct.

6.6.2.Â libtool and
libtoolize

Ports shipping with their own copy of libtool (search for
a file named ltmain.sh) need to have
USES=libtool. If a port has
USE_AUTOTOOLS=libtoolize it probably also
needs USES=libtool. See the USES=libtool section in ChapterÂ 17, Using USES
Macros for more details.

6.6.3.Â libltdl.so

Some ports make use of the libltdl.so
library package, which is part of the
libtool suite. Use of this library does
not automatically necessitate the use of
libtool itself. If the port needs
libltdl.so, add a dependency on
it:

LIB_DEPENDS= libltdl.so:devel/libltdl

6.6.4.Â autoconf and
autoheader

Some ports do not contain a configure script, but do
contain an autoconf template in
configure.ac. Use these
assignments to let autoconf
create the configure script, and also have
autoheader create template headers for
use by the configure script.

USE_AUTOTOOLS= autoconf[:env]

and

USE_AUTOTOOLS= autoheader

which also implies the use of
autoconf.

The additional optional variables
AUTOCONF_ARGS and
AUTOHEADER_ARGS can be overridden by the
port Makefile if specifically
requested. Most ports are unlikely to need this. See
bsd.autotools.mk for further
details.

6.6.5.Â automake and
aclocal

Some packages only contain
Makefile.am. These have to be
converted into Makefile.in using
automake, and the further processed by
configure to generate an actual
Makefile.

Similarly, packages occasionally do not ship with
an included aclocal.m4, again
required to build the software. This can be achieved with
aclocal, which scans
configure.ac or
configure.in.

aclocal has a similar relationship to
automake as autoheader
does to autoconf, described in the
previous section. aclocal implies the
use of automake, thus we have:

USE_AUTOTOOLS= automake[:env]

and

USE_AUTOTOOLS= aclocal

As with autoconf and
autoheader, both
automake and aclocal
have optional argument variables,
AUTOMAKE_ARGS and
ACLOCAL_ARGS respectively, which may be
overridden by the port Makefile if
required.

6.7.Â Using GNU gettext

6.7.1.Â Basic Usage

If the port requires gettext, set
USES= gettext, and the port will inherit
a dependency on libintl.so from
devel/gettext. Other
values for gettext usage are listed in
USES=gettext.

A rather common case is a port using
gettext and configure.
Generally, GNU configure should be able
to locate gettext automatically.

USES= gettext
GNU_CONFIGURE= yes

If it ever fails to, hints at the location of
gettext can be passed in
CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS as
follows:

6.7.2.Â Optional Usage

Some software products allow for disabling
NLS. For example, through passing
--disable-nls to
configure. In that case, the port must use
gettext conditionally, depending on the
status of the NLS option. For ports of low
to medium complexity, use this idiom:

The next item on the to-do list is to arrange so that
the message catalog files are included in the packing list
conditionally. The Makefile part of
this task is already provided by the idiom. It is explained
in the section on advanced
pkg-plist practices. In a
nutshell, each occurrence of %%NLS%% in
pkg-plist will be replaced by
“@commentÂ ” if NLS is
disabled, or by a null string if NLS is enabled.
Consequently, the lines prefixed by
%%NLS%% will become mere comments in the
final packing list if NLS is off; otherwise the prefix will
be just left out. Then insert
%%NLS%% before each path to a message
catalog file in pkg-plist. For
example:

6.7.3.Â Handling Message Catalog Directories

There is a point to note about installing message
catalog files. The target directories for them, which
reside under
LOCALBASE/share/locale,
must not be created and removed by a port. The most
popular languages have their respective directories listed
in
PORTSDIR/Templates/BSD.local.dist.
The directories for many other languages are governed by the
devel/gettext port.
Consult its pkg-plist and see whether
the port is going to install a message catalog file for a
unique language.

6.8.Â Using Perl

If MASTER_SITES is set to
CPAN, the correct subdirectory is usually
selected automatically. If the default subdirectory is wrong,
CPAN/Module can be used to change it.
MASTER_SITES can also be set to the old
MASTER_SITE_PERL_CPAN, then the preferred
value of MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR is the
top-level hierarchy name. For example, the recommended value
for p5-Module-Name is
Module. The top-level hierarchy can be
examined at cpan.org.
This keeps the port working when the author of the module
changes.

The exception to this rule is when the relevant directory
does not exist or the distfile does not exist in that
directory. In such case, using author's id as
MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR is allowed.
The CPAN:AUTHOR macro can be used, which will
be translated to the hashed author directory. For example,
CPAN:AUTHOR will be converted to
authors/id/A/AU/AUTHOR.

The full path of the Perl 5 interpreter,
either in the system or installed from a port, but
without the version number. Use this when the software
needs the path to the Perl
interpreter. To replace
“#!”lines in scripts,
use USES=shebangfix.

PERL_VERSION

The full version of Perl installed (for example,
5.8.9).

PERL_LEVEL

The installed Perl version as
an integer of the form MNNNPP
(for example, 500809).

Directory name where site specific
Perl packages go. This value is
added to PLIST_SUB.

Note:

Ports of Perl modules which do not have an official
website must link to cpan.org in
the WWW line of pkg-descr. The
preferred URL form is
http://search.cpan.org/dist/Module-Name/
(including the trailing slash).

Note:

Do not use ${SITE_PERL} in dependency
declarations. Doing so assumes that
perl5.mk has been included, which is
not always true. Ports depending on this port will have
incorrect dependencies if this port's files move later in an
upgrade. The right way to declare Perl module dependencies
is shown in the example below.

ExampleÂ 6.5.Â Perl Dependency Example

p5-IO-Tee>=0.64:devel/p5-IO-Tee

For Perl ports that install manual pages, the macro
PERL5_MAN3 and PERL5_MAN1
can be used
inside pkg-plist. For example,

Note:

There are no
PERL5_MANx
macros for the
other sections (x in
2 and
4 to 9) because those
get installed in the regular directories.

ExampleÂ 6.6.Â A Port Which Only Requires Perl to Build

As the default USE_PERL5 value is build and run, set it
to:

USES= perl5
USE_PERL5= build

ExampleÂ 6.7.Â A Port Which Also Requires Perl to Patch

From time to time, using sed(1) for patching is not
enough. When using perl(1) is easier, use:

USES= perl5
USE_PERL5= patch build run

ExampleÂ 6.8.Â A Perl Module Which Needs
ExtUtils::MakeMaker to Build

Most Perl modules come with a
Makefile.PL configure script. In this
case, set:

USES= perl5
USE_PERL5= configure

ExampleÂ 6.9.Â A Perl Module Which Needs
Module::Build to Build

When a Perl module comes with a
Build.PL configure script, it can require
Module::Build, in which case,
set

USES= perl5
USE_PERL5= modbuild

If it instead requires
Module::Build::Tiny, set

USES= perl5
USE_PERL5= modbuildtiny

6.9.Â Using X11

6.9.1.Â X.Org Components

The X11 implementation available in The Ports Collection
is X.Org. If the application depends on X components, set
USE_XORG to the list of required
components. Available components, at the time of writing,
are:

The Mesa Project is an effort to provide free OpenGL
implementation. To specify a dependency on various
components of this project, use USE_GL.
Valid options are:
egl, gl, glesv2, glew, glu, glut, glw and
linux. For backwards compatibility, the
value of yes maps to
glu.

ExampleÂ 6.10.Â USE_XORG Example

USE_XORG= xrender xft xkbfile xt xaw
USE_GL= glu

TableÂ 6.5.Â Variables for Ports That Use X

USES= imake

The port uses imake.

XMKMF

Set to the path of xmkmf if
not in the PATH. Defaults to
xmkmf -a.

ExampleÂ 6.11.Â Using X11-Related Variables

# Use some X11 libraries
USE_XORG= x11 xpm

6.9.2.Â Ports That Require Motif

If the port requires a Motif library, define
USES= motif in the
Makefile. Default Motif implementation
is
x11-toolkits/open-motif.
Users can choose
x11-toolkits/lesstif
instead by setting WANT_LESSTIF
in their make.conf.

MOTIFLIB will be set by
motif.mk to reference the
appropriate Motif library. Please patch the source of the
port to use ${MOTIFLIB} wherever
the Motif library is referenced in the original
Makefile or
Imakefile.

There are two common cases:

If the port refers to the Motif library as
-lXm in its
Makefile or
Imakefile, substitute
${MOTIFLIB} for it.

If the port uses XmClientLibs in
its Imakefile, change it to
${MOTIFLIB} ${XTOOLLIB}
${XLIB}.

Note that MOTIFLIB (usually) expands
to -L/usr/local/lib -lXm -lXp or
/usr/local/lib/libXm.a, so there is no
need to add -L or -l
in front.

6.9.3.Â X11 Fonts

If the port installs fonts for the X Window System, put
them in
LOCALBASE/lib/X11/fonts/local.

6.9.4.Â Getting a Fake DISPLAY with Xvfb

Some applications require a working X11 display for
compilation to succeed. This poses a problem for machines
that operate headless. When this variable is used,
the build infrastructure will start the virtual framebuffer
X server. The working DISPLAY is then passed
to the build. See USES=display
for the possible arguments.

USES= display

6.9.5.Â Desktop Entries

Desktop entries (a
Freedesktop standard) provide a way to
automatically adjust desktop features when a new program is
installed, without requiring user intervention. For
example, newly-installed programs automatically appear in
the application menus of compatible desktop environments.
Desktop entries originated in the
GNOME desktop environment, but
are now a standard and also work with
KDE and
Xfce. This bit of automation
provides a real benefit to the user, and desktop entries are
encouraged for applications which can be used in a desktop
environment.

6.9.5.1.Â Using Predefined .desktop
Files

Ports that include predefined
*.desktop
must include those files in pkg-plist
and install them in the
$LOCALBASE/share/applications
directory. The INSTALL_DATA
macro is useful for installing these
files.

6.9.5.2.Â Updating Desktop Database

If a port has a MimeType entry in its
portname.desktop,
the desktop database must be updated after install and
deinstall. To do this, define USES=
desktop-file-utils.

6.9.5.3.Â Creating Desktop Entries with
DESKTOP_ENTRIES

Desktop entries can be easily created for applications
by using DESKTOP_ENTRIES. A
file named
name.desktop
will be created, installed, and added to
pkg-plist automatically. Syntax
is:

The list of possible categories is available on the
Freedesktop
website. StartupNotify
indicates whether the application is compatible with
startup notifications. These are
typically a graphic indicator like a clock that appear at
the mouse pointer, menu, or panel to give the user an
indication when a program is starting. A program that is
compatible with startup notifications clears the indicator
after it has started. Programs that are not compatible
with startup notifications would never clear the indicator
(potentially confusing and infuriating the user), and
must have StartupNotify set to
false so the indicator is not shown at
all.

6.10.Â Using GNOME

6.10.1.Â Introduction

This chapter explains the GNOME
framework as used by ports. The framework can be loosely
divided into the base components, GNOME
desktop components, and a few special macros that simplify the
work of port maintainers.

While developing a port or changing one, please set

DEVELOPER=yes

in the environment or in
/etc/make.conf. This causes the ports
framework to enable additional checks.

6.10.2.Â Using USE_GNOME

Adding this variable to the port allows the use of
the macros and components defined in
bsd.gnome.mk. The code in
bsd.gnome.mk adds the needed
build-time, run-time or library dependencies
or the handling of special files.
GNOME applications under FreeBSD use the
USE_GNOME infrastructure. Include all the
needed components as a space-separated list. The
USE_GNOME components are divided into
these virtual lists: basic components, GNOME 3 components
and legacy components. If the port needs only GTK3 libraries,
this is the shortest way to define it:

USE_GNOME= gtk30

USE_GNOME components automatically
add the dependencies they need. Please see
SectionÂ 6.11, “GNOME Components” for an exhaustive
list of all USE_GNOME components and which
other components they imply and their dependencies.

Here is an example Makefile for a
GNOME port that uses many of the techniques outlined in this
document. Please use it as a guide for creating new
ports.

Note:

The USE_GNOME macro without any
arguments does not add any dependencies to the port.
USE_GNOME cannot be set after
bsd.port.pre.mk.

6.10.3.Â Variables

This section explains which macros are available and how
they are used. Like they are used in the above example. The
SectionÂ 6.11, “GNOME Components” has a more in-depth
explanation. USE_GNOME has to be set for
these macros to be of use.

INSTALLS_ICONS

GTK+ ports which install
Freedesktop-style icons to
${LOCALBASE}/share/icons should use
this macro to ensure that the icons are cached and will
display correctly. The cache file is named
icon-theme.cache. Do not include
that file in pkg-plist. This macro
handles that automatically. This macro is not needed
for Qt, which use a
internal method.

GLIB_SCHEMAS

List of all the glib schema files the port installs.
The macro will add the files to the port plist and
handle the registration of these files on install and
deinstall.

The glib schema files are written in
XML and end with the
gschema.xml extension. They are
installed in the
share/glib-2.0/schemas/ directory.
These schema files contain all application config values
with there default settings. The actual database used
by the applications is built by
glib-compile-schema, which is
run by the GLIB_SCHEMAS macro.

GLIB_SCHEMAS=foo.gschema.xml

Note:

Do not add glib schemas to the
pkg-plist. If they are listed in
pkg-plist, they will not be
registered and the applications might not work
properly.

GCONF_SCHEMAS

List all the gconf schema files. The macro will add
the schema files to the port plist and will handle their
registration on install and deinstall.

GConf is the XML-based database
that virtually all GNOME applications use for storing
their settings. These files are installed into the
etc/gconf/schemas directory. This
database is defined by installed schema files that are
used to generate %gconf.xml key
files. For each schema file installed by the port,
there be an entry in the
Makefile:

GCONF_SCHEMAS=my_app.schemas my_app2.schemas my_app3.schemas

Note:

Gconf schemas are listed in the
GCONF_SCHEMAS macro rather than
pkg-plist. If they are listed in
pkg-plist, they will not be
registered and the applications might not work
properly.

INSTALLS_OMF

Open Source Metadata Framework
(OMF) files are commonly used by
GNOME 2 applications. These files contain the
application help file information, and require special
processing by ScrollKeeper/rarian. To properly register
OMF files when installing GNOME
applications from packages, make sure that
omf files are listed in
pkg-plist and that the port
Makefile has
INSTALLS_OMF defined:

INSTALLS_OMF=yes

When set, bsd.gnome.mk
automatically scans pkg-plist and
adds appropriate @exec and
@unexec directives for each
.omf to track in the
OMF registration database.

6.11.Â GNOME Components

For further help with a GNOME port, look at some of the
existing
ports for examples. The
FreeBSD GNOME
page has contact information if more help is
needed. The components are divided into GNOME components
that are currently in use and legacy components. If the
component supports argument, they are listed between
parenthesis in the description. The first is the default.
"Both" is shown if the component defaults to adding to both
build and run dependencies.

TableÂ 6.6.Â GNOME Components

Component

Associated program

Description

atk

accessibility/atk

Accessibility toolkit (ATK)

atkmm

accessibility/atkmm

c++ bindings for atk

cairo

graphics/cairo

Vector graphics library with cross-device output
support

cairomm

graphics/cairomm

c++ bindings for cairo

dconf

devel/dconf

Configuration database system
(both, build, run)

evolutiondataserver3

databases/evolution-data-server

Data backends for the Evolution integrated
mail/PIM suite

gdkpixbuf2

graphics/gdk-pixbuf2

Graphics library for GTK+

glib20

devel/glib20

GNOME core library
glib20

glibmm

devel/glibmm

c++ bindings for glib20

gnomecontrolcenter3

sysutils/gnome-control-center

GNOME 3 Control Center

gnomedesktop3

x11/gnome-desktop

GNOME 3 desktop UI library

gsound

audio/gsound

GObject library for playing system sounds
(both, build, run)

gtk-update-icon-cache

graphics/gtk-update-icon-cache

Gtk-update-icon-cache utility from the Gtk+
toolkit

gtk20

x11-toolkits/gtk20

Gtk+ 2 toolkit

gtk30

x11-toolkits/gtk30

Gtk+ 3 toolkit

gtkmm20

x11-toolkits/gtkmm20

c++ bindings 2.0 for the gtk20 toolkit

gtkmm24

x11-toolkits/gtkmm24

c++ bindings 2.4 for the gtk20 toolkit

gtkmm30

x11-toolkits/gtkmm30

c++ bindings 3.0 for the gtk30 toolkit

gtksourceview2

x11-toolkits/gtksourceview2

Widget that adds syntax highlighting to
GtkTextView

gtksourceview3

x11-toolkits/gtksourceview3

Text widget that adds syntax highlighting to
the GtkTextView widget

gtksourceviewmm3

x11-toolkits/gtksourceviewmm3

c++ bindings for the gtksourceview3 library

gvfs

devel/gvfs

GNOME virtual file system

intltool

textproc/intltool

Tool for internationalization (also see
intlhack)

introspection

devel/gobject-introspection

Basic introspection bindings and tools to
generate introspection bindings. Most of the time
:build is enough, :both/:run is only need for
applications that use introspection bindings.
(both, build, run)

libgda5

databases/libgda5

Provides uniform access to different kinds of
data sources

libgda5-ui

databases/libgda5-ui

UI library from the libgda5 library

libgdamm5

databases/libgdamm5

c++ bindings for the libgda5 library

libgsf

devel/libgsf

Extensible I/O abstraction for dealing with
structured file formats

librsvg2

graphics/librsvg2

Library for parsing and rendering SVG
vector-graphic files

libsigc++20

devel/libsigc++20

Callback Framework for C++

libxml++26

textproc/libxml++26

c++ bindings for the libxml2 library

libxml2

textproc/libxml2

XML parser library (both, build, run)

libxslt

textproc/libxslt

XSLT C library (both, build, run)

metacity

x11-wm/metacity

Window manager from GNOME

nautilus3

x11-fm/nautilus

GNOME file manager

pango

x11-toolkits/pango

Open-source framework for the layout and
rendering of i18n text

pangomm

x11-toolkits/pangomm

c++ bindings for the pango library

py3gobject3

devel/py3-gobject3

Python 3, GObject 3.0 bindings

pygobject3

devel/py-gobject3

Python 2, GObject 3.0 bindings

vte3

x11-toolkits/vte3

Terminal widget with improved accessibility and
I18N support

TableÂ 6.7.Â GNOME Macro Components

Component

Description

gnomeprefix

Supply configure with
some default locations.

intlhack

Same as intltool, but patches to make sure
share/locale/ is used. Please
only use when intltool alone is
not enough.

referencehack

This macro is there to help splitting of the API or
reference documentation into its own port.

TableÂ 6.8.Â GNOME Legacy Components

Component

Associated program

Description

atspi

accessibility/at-spi

Assistive Technology Service Provider
Interface

esound

audio/esound

Enlightenment sound package

gal2

x11-toolkits/gal2

Collection of widgets taken from GNOME 2
gnumeric

gconf2

devel/gconf2

Configuration database system for GNOME 2

gconfmm26

devel/gconfmm26

c++ bindings for gconf2

gdkpixbuf

graphics/gdk-pixbuf

Graphics library for GTK+

glib12

devel/glib12

glib 1.2 core library

gnomedocutils

textproc/gnome-doc-utils

GNOME doc utils

gnomemimedata

misc/gnome-mime-data

MIME and Application database for GNOME 2

gnomesharp20

x11-toolkits/gnome-sharp20

GNOME 2 interfaces for the .NET runtime

gnomespeech

accessibility/gnome-speech

GNOME 2 text-to-speech API

gnomevfs2

devel/gnome-vfs

GNOME 2 Virtual File System

gtk12

x11-toolkits/gtk12

Gtk+ 1.2 toolkit

gtkhtml3

www/gtkhtml3

Lightweight HTML rendering/printing/editing
engine

gtkhtml4

www/gtkhtml4

Lightweight HTML rendering/printing/editing
engine

gtksharp20

x11-toolkits/gtk-sharp20

GTK+ and GNOME 2 interfaces for the .NET
runtime

gtksourceview

x11-toolkits/gtksourceview

Widget that adds syntax highlighting to
GtkTextView

libartgpl2

graphics/libart_lgpl

Library for high-performance 2D graphics

libbonobo

devel/libbonobo

Component and compound document system for
GNOME 2

libbonoboui

x11-toolkits/libbonoboui

GUI frontend to the libbonobo component of
GNOME 2

libgda4

databases/libgda4

Provides uniform access to different kinds of
data sources

libglade2

devel/libglade2

GNOME 2 glade library

libgnome

x11/libgnome

Libraries for GNOME 2, a GNU desktop
environment

libgnomecanvas

graphics/libgnomecanvas

Graphics library for GNOME 2

libgnomekbd

x11/libgnomekbd

GNOME 2 keyboard shared library

libgnomeprint

print/libgnomeprint

Gnome 2 print support library

libgnomeprintui

x11-toolkits/libgnomeprintui

Gnome 2 print support library

libgnomeui

x11-toolkits/libgnomeui

Libraries for the GNOME 2 GUI, a GNU desktop
environment

libgtkhtml

www/libgtkhtml

Lightweight HTML rendering/printing/editing
engine

libgtksourceviewmm

x11-toolkits/libgtksourceviewmm

c++ binding of GtkSourceView

libidl

devel/libIDL

Library for creating trees of CORBA IDL
file

libsigc++12

devel/libsigc++12

Callback Framework for C++

libwnck

x11-toolkits/libwnck

Library used for writing pagers and
taskslists

libwnck3

x11-toolkits/libwnck3

Library used for writing pagers and
taskslists

orbit2

devel/ORBit2

High-performance CORBA ORB with support for the
C language

pygnome2

x11-toolkits/py-gnome2

Python bindings for GNOME 2

pygobject

devel/py-gobject

Python 2, GObject 2.0 bindings

pygtk2

x11-toolkits/py-gtk2

Set of Python bindings for GTK+

pygtksourceview

x11-toolkits/py-gtksourceview

Python bindings for GtkSourceView 2

vte

x11-toolkits/vte

Terminal widget with improved accessibility and
I18N support

TableÂ 6.9.Â Deprecated Components: Do Not Use

Component

Description

HAVE_GNOME

Deprecated, do not use. Was used to check if a
component was installed. This was used for ports
that did not have
--enable/--disable
switches for their configure script. But the building
of parts of a port without a implicit request is
discouraged.

WANT_GNOME

Deprecated, do not use. Was used by ports that
needed USE_GNOME for optional
dependencies, which where defined after
bsd.port.pre.mk. Since
USE_GNOME can be used after the
inclusion of bsd.port.options.mk,
there is little need for this macro any more.

pangox-compat

pangox-compat has been
deprecated and split off from the
pango package.

6.12.Â Using Qt

6.12.1.Â Ports That Require Qt

The Ports Collection provides support for Qt 4 and Qt 5
frameworks with
USE_QTx,
where x is
4 or 5.
Set USE_QTx
to the list of required Qt components (libraries,
tools, plugins). The Qt 4 and Qt 5 frameworks are quite
similar. The main difference is the set of supported
components.

The Qt framework exports a number of variables which can
be used by ports, some of them listed below:

Some configure scripts do not support the arguments above.
To suppress modification ofCONFIGURE_ENV
and CONFIGURE_ARGS, set
QT_NONSTANDARD.

6.12.2.Â Component Selection

Individual Qt tool and library dependencies must be
specified in
USE_QTx.
Every component can be suffixed with
_build or _run, the
suffix indicating whether the dependency on the component is
at buildtime or runtime. If unsuffixed, the component will be
depended on at both build- and runtime. Usually, library
components are specified unsuffixed, tool components
are mostly specified with the _build suffix
and plugin components are specified with the
_run suffix. The most commonly used
components are listed below (all available components are
listed in _USE_QT_ALL,
_USE_QT4_ONLY, and
_USE_QT5_ONLY in
/usr/ports/Mk/bsd.qt.mk):

TableÂ 6.11.Â Available Qt Library Components

Name

Description

core

core library (Qt 5 only)

corelib

core library (Qt 4 only)

dbus

Qt DBus library

gui

graphical user interface library

network

network library

opengl

Qt OpenGL library

script

script library

sql

SQL library

testlib

unit testing library

webkit

Qt WebKit library

xml

Qt XML library

To determine the libraries an application
depends on, run ldd on the main
executable after a successful compilation.

In this example, the ported application uses the Qt 4
graphical user interface library, the Qt 4 core library,
all of the Qt 4 code generation tools and Qt 4's Makefile
generator. Since the gui library
implies a dependency on the core library,
corelib does not need to be specified.
The Qt 4 code generation tools moc,
uic and rcc, as well
as the Makefile generator qmake are
only needed at buildtime, thus they are specified with the
_build suffix:

USE_QT4= gui moc_build qmake_build rcc_build uic_build

6.12.3.Â Using qmake

If the application provides a
qmake project file
(*.pro), define
USES= qmake along with
USE_QTx. Note
that USES= qmake already implies a build
dependency on qmake, therefore the qmake component can be
omitted from
USE_QTx.
Similar to CMake,
qmake supports out-of-source
builds, which can be enabled by specifying the
outsource argument (see USES= qmake
example).

TableÂ 6.14.Â Variables for Ports That Use
qmake

Variable

Means

QMAKE_ARGS

Port specific qmake
flags to be passed to the qmake
binary.

QMAKE_ENV

Environment variables to be set for the
qmake binary. The default is
${CONFIGURE_ENV}.

QMAKE_SOURCE_PATH

Path to qmake project files
(.pro). The default is
${WRKSRC} if an
out-of-source build is requested, empty
otherwise.

ExampleÂ 6.13.Â USES= qmake Example

This snippet demonstrates the use of
qmake for a Qt 4 port:

USES= qmake:outsource
USE_QT4= moc_build

For a Qt 5 port:

USES= qmake:outsource
USE_QT5= buildtools_build

Qt applications are often written to be cross-platform
and often X11/Unix is not the platform they are developed
on, which in turn leads to certain loose ends,
like:

Missing additional include
paths. Many applications come with
system tray icon support, but neglect to look for
includes and/or libraries in the X11 directories. To add
directories to qmake's
include and library search paths via the command
line, use:

Bogus installation paths.
Sometimes data such as icons or .desktop files are by
default installed into directories which are not scanned
by XDG-compatible applications.
editors/texmaker is
an example for this - look at
patch-texmaker.pro in the
files directory of that port for a
template on how to remedy this directly in the
qmake project file.

6.13.Â Using KDE

6.13.1.Â KDE 4 Variable Definitions

If the application depends on KDE 4, set
USES+=kde:4 and
USE_KDE to the list of required
components. _build and
_run suffixes can be used to force
components dependency type (for example,
baseapps_run). If no suffix is set, a
default dependency type will be used. To force both types,
add the component twice with both suffixes (for example,
automoc4_build automoc4_run). The most
commonly used components are listed below (up-to-date
components are documented at the top of
/usr/ports/Mk/bsd.kde4.mk):

TableÂ 6.15.Â Available KDE 4 Components

Name

Description

kdehier

Hierarchy of common KDE directories

kdelibs

KDE core libraries

kdeprefix

If set, port will be installed into
${KDE_PREFIX}

automoc4

Build tool to automatically generate moc
files

akonadi

Storage server for KDE PIM data

soprano

Library for Resource Description Framework
(RDF)

strigi

Strigi desktop search library

libkcddb

KDE CDDB (compact disc database) library

libkcompactdisc

KDE library for interfacing with audio
CDs

libkdeedu

Libraries used by educational
applications

libkdcraw

KDE LibRaw library

libkexiv2

KDE Exiv2 library

libkipi

KDE Image Plugin Interface

libkonq

Konqueror core library

libksane

KDE SANE ("Scanner Access Now Easy")
library

pimlibs

Personal information management libraries

kate

Advanced text editor framework

marble

Virtual globe and world atlas

okular

Universal document viewer

korundum

KDE Ruby bindings

perlkde

KDE Perl bindings

pykde4

KDE Python bindings

pykdeuic4

PyKDE user interface compiler

smokekde

KDE SMOKE libraries

KDE 4 ports are installed into
KDE_PREFIX. This is
achieved by specifying the kdeprefix
component, which overrides the default
PREFIX. The ports, however, respect any
PREFIX set via the MAKEFLAGS
environment variable and/or make
arguments. Currently KDE_PREFIX
is identical to the default PREFIX,
${LOCALBASE}.

ExampleÂ 6.14.Â USE_KDE Example

This is a simple example for a KDE 4 port.
USES= cmake:outsource instructs the
port to utilize CMake, a
configuration tool widely used by KDE 4 projects (see
SectionÂ 6.5.4, “Using cmake” for detailed usage).
USE_KDE brings dependency on KDE
libraries and makes port using
automoc4 at build stage.
Required KDE components and other dependencies can be
determined through configure log.
USE_KDE does not imply
USE_QT4. If a port requires some
Qt 4 components, specify them in
USE_QT4.

6.15.Â Using Java

6.15.1.Â Variable Definitions

If the port needs a Java™ Development Kit
(JDK™) to either build, run or even
extract the distfile, then define
USE_JAVA.

There are several JDKs in the ports
collection, from various vendors, and in several versions. If
the port must use a particular version, specify it using the
JAVA_VERSION variable.
The most current version is
java/openjdk8, with
java/openjdk6 and
java/openjdk7 also
available.

6.15.2.Â Building with Ant

When the port is to be built using Apache Ant, it has to
define USE_ANT. Ant is thus considered to
be the sub-make command. When no
do-build target is defined by the
port, a default one will be set that runs Ant according to
MAKE_ENV, MAKE_ARGS and
ALL_TARGET. This is similar to the
USES= gmake mechanism, which is documented
in SectionÂ 6.5, “Building Mechanisms”.

6.15.3.Â Best Practices

When porting a Java library, the port has to install
the JAR file(s) in ${JAVAJARDIR}, and
everything else under
${JAVASHAREDIR}/${PORTNAME} (except for
the documentation, see below). To reduce the packing file
size, reference the JAR file(s) directly in the
Makefile. Use this statement (where
myport.jar is
the name of the JAR file installed as part of the
port):

PLIST_FILES+= ${JAVAJARDIR}/myport.jar

When porting a Java application, the port usually
installs everything under a single directory (including its
JAR dependencies). The use of
${JAVASHAREDIR}/${PORTNAME} is strongly
encouraged in this regard. It is up the porter to decide
whether the port installs the additional JAR
dependencies under this directory or uses the
already installed ones (from
${JAVAJARDIR}).

When porting a Java™ application that requires an
application server such as
www/tomcat7 to run the
service, it is quite common for a vendor to distribute a
.war. A .war
is a Web application ARchive and is extracted when
called by the application. Avoid adding a
.war
to pkg-plist.
It is not considered best practice. An application server
will expand war archive, but not
clean it up properly if the port is removed. A more
desirable way of working with this file is to extract the
archive, then install the files, and lastly add these files
to pkg-plist.

Regardless of the type of port (library or
application), the additional documentation is installed in the
same location as
for any other port. The Javadoc tool is known to produce a
different set of files depending on the version of the
JDK that is used. For ports that do not
enforce the use of a particular JDK, it is
therefore a complex task to specify the packing list
(pkg-plist). This is one reason why
porters are strongly encouraged to use
PORTDOCS. Moreover, even if the set of
files that will be generated by javadoc can
be predicted, the size of the resulting
pkg-plist advocates for the use of
PORTDOCS.

The default value for DATADIR is
${PREFIX}/share/${PORTNAME}. It is a
good idea to override DATADIR to
${JAVASHAREDIR}/${PORTNAME} for Java
ports. Indeed, DATADIR is automatically
added to PLIST_SUB (documented in
SectionÂ 8.1, “Changing pkg-plist Based on Make
Variables”) so use
%%DATADIR%% directly in
pkg-plist.

As for the choice of building Java ports from source or
directly installing them from a binary distribution, there
is no defined policy at the time of writing. However,
people from the
FreeBSD Java
Project encourage porters to have their ports
built from source whenever it is a trivial task.

All the features that have been presented in this
section are implemented in bsd.java.mk.
If the port needs more sophisticated
Java support, please first have a look at the bsd.java.mk
Subversion log as it
usually takes some time to document the latest features.
Then, if the needed support that is lacking would be
beneficial to many other Java ports, feel free to discuss it
on the FreeBSD Java Language mailing list.

Although there is a java category for
PRs, it refers to the JDK porting effort
from the FreeBSD Java project. Therefore, submit the Java port
in the ports category as for any other
port, unless the issue is related to either a
JDK implementation or
bsd.java.mk.

6.16.Â Web Applications, Apache and PHP

6.16.1.Â Apache

TableÂ 6.20.Â Variables for Ports That Use Apache

USE_APACHE

The port requires Apache. Possible values:
yes (gets any version),
22, 24,
22-24, 22+,
etc. The default APACHE version is
22. More details are available
in ports/Mk/bsd.apache.mk and
at wiki.freebsd.org/Apache/.

APXS

Full path to the apxs
binary. Can be overridden in the port.

HTTPD

Full path to the httpd
binary. Can be overridden in the port.

APACHE_VERSION

The version of present Apache installation
(read-only variable). This variable is only
available after inclusion of
bsd.port.pre.mk. Possible
values: 22,
24.

APACHEMODDIR

Directory for Apache modules. This variable is
automatically expanded in
pkg-plist.

APACHEINCLUDEDIR

Directory for Apache headers. This variable is
automatically expanded in
pkg-plist.

APACHEETCDIR

Directory for Apache configuration files. This
variable is automatically expanded in
pkg-plist.

TableÂ 6.21.Â Useful Variables for Porting Apache Modules

MODULENAME

Name of the module. Default value is
PORTNAME. Example:
mod_hello

SHORTMODNAME

Short name of the module. Automatically
derived from MODULENAME, but can
be overridden. Example:
hello

AP_FAST_BUILD

Use apxs to compile and
install the module.

AP_GENPLIST

Also automatically creates a
pkg-plist.

AP_INC

Adds a directory to a header search path during
compilation.

AP_LIB

Adds a directory to a library search path
during compilation.

AP_EXTRAS

Additional flags to pass to
apxs.

6.16.2.Â Web Applications

Web applications must be installed into
PREFIX/www/appname.
This path is available both in
Makefile and in
pkg-plist as WWWDIR,
and the path relative to PREFIX is
available in Makefile as
WWWDIR_REL.

The user and group of web server process are available
as WWWOWN and WWWGRP,
in case the ownership of some files needs to be changed. The
default values of both are www. Use
WWWOWN?= myuser and WWWGRP?=
mygroup if the port needs different values. This
allows the user to override them easily.

Important:

Use WWWOWN and
WWWGRP sparingly. Remember that every
file the web server can write to is a security risk waiting
to happen.

Do not depend on Apache unless the web app explicitly
needs Apache. Respect that users may wish to run a web
application on a web server other than
Apache.

6.16.3.Â PHP

PHP web applications declare
their dependency on it with USES=php. See
SectionÂ 17.66, “php” for more information.

6.16.4.Â PEAR Modules

Porting PEAR modules is a very simple process.

Add USES=pear to the port's
Makefile. The framework will install the
relevant files in the right places and automatically generate
the plist at install time.

6.17.Â Using Python

The Ports Collection supports parallel installation of
multiple Python versions. Ports must use a
correct python interpreter, according to
the user-settable PYTHON_VERSION.
Most prominently, this means replacing the path to
python executable in scripts with the value
of PYTHON_CMD.

Ports that install files under
PYTHON_SITELIBDIR must use the
pyXY- package name prefix, so their package
name embeds the version of Python they are installed
into.

PKGNAMEPREFIX= ${PYTHON_PKGNAMEPREFIX}

TableÂ 6.22.Â Most Useful Variables for Ports That Use Python

USES=python

The port needs Python. The minimal required
version can be specified with values such as
2.7+. Version ranges can also be
specified by separating two version numbers with a dash:
USES=python:3.2-3.3

USE_PYTHON=distutils

Use Python distutils for configuring, compiling,
and installing. This is required when the port comes
with setup.py. This overrides
the do-build and
do-install targets and may
also override do-configure
if GNU_CONFIGURE is not
defined. Additionally, it implies
USE_PYTHON=flavors.

USE_PYTHON=autoplist

Create the packaging list automatically. This also
requires USE_PYTHON=distutils to be
set.

USE_PYTHON=concurrent

The port will use an unique prefix, typically
PYTHON_PKGNAMEPREFIX for certain
directories, such as EXAMPLESDIR and
DOCSDIR and also will append a
suffix, the python version from
PYTHON_VER, to binaries and scripts
to be installed. This allows ports to be installed for
different Python versions at the same time, which
otherwise would install conflicting files.

Some Python applications claim to have
DESTDIR support (which would be required
for staging) but it is broken (Mailman up to 2.1.16, for
instance). This can be worked around by recompiling the
scripts. This can be done, for example, in the
post-build target. Assuming the
Python scripts are supposed to reside in
PYTHONPREFIX_SITELIBDIR after installation,
this solution can be applied:

This recompiles the sources with a path relative to the
stage directory, and prepends the value of
PREFIX to the file name recorded in the
byte-compiled output file by -d.
-f is required to force recompilation, and
the :S;${PREFIX}/;; strips prefixes from
the value of PYTHONPREFIX_SITELIBDIR
to make it relative to
PREFIX.

6.18.Â Using Tcl/Tk

The Ports Collection supports parallel installation of
multiple Tcl/Tk versions. Ports
should try to support at least the default
Tcl/Tk version and higher with
USES=tcl. It is possible to specify the
desired version of tcl by appending
:xx, for example,
USES=tcl:85.

TableÂ 6.24.Â The Most Useful Read-Only Variables for Ports That Use
Tcl/Tk

Override the name of the setup script from
setup.rb. Another common value is
install.rb.

This table shows the selected variables available
to port authors via the ports infrastructure. These variables
are used to install files into their proper locations.
Use them in pkg-plist as much as
possible. Do not redefine these variables in the port.

TableÂ 6.26.Â Selected Read-Only Variables for Ports That Use
Ruby

Variable

Description

Example value

RUBY_PKGNAMEPREFIX

Used as a PKGNAMEPREFIX to
distinguish packages for different Ruby
versions.

ruby19-

RUBY_VERSION

Full version of Ruby in the form of
x.y.z[.p].

1.9.3.484

RUBY_SITELIBDIR

Architecture independent libraries installation
path.

/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9

RUBY_SITEARCHLIBDIR

Architecture dependent libraries installation
path.

/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9/amd64-freebsd10

RUBY_MODDOCDIR

Module documentation installation path.

/usr/local/share/doc/ruby19/patsy

RUBY_MODEXAMPLESDIR

Module examples installation path.

/usr/local/share/examples/ruby19/patsy

A complete list of available variables can be found in
/usr/ports/Mk/bsd.ruby.mk.

6.21.Â Using wxWidgets

This section describes the status of the
wxWidgets libraries in the ports
tree and its integration with the ports system.

6.21.1.Â Introduction

There are many versions of the
wxWidgets libraries which
conflict between them (install files under the same name).
In the ports tree this problem has been solved by installing
each version under a different name using version number
suffixes.

The obvious disadvantage of this is that each
application has to be modified to find the expected version.
Fortunately, most of the applications call the
wx-config script to determine the
necessary compiler and linker flags. The script is named
differently for every available version. Majority of
applications respect an environment variable, or accept a
configure argument, to specify which
wx-config script to call. Otherwise they
have to be patched.

6.21.2.Â Version Selection

To make the port use a specific version of
wxWidgets there are two variables
available for defining (if only one is defined the other
will be set to a default value):

TableÂ 6.27.Â Variables to Select
wxWidgets Versions

Variable

Description

Default value

USE_WX

List of versions the port can use

All available versions

USE_WX_NOT

List of versions the port cannot use

None

The available
wxWidgets versions and the
corresponding ports in the tree are:

Note:

The wxWidgets variables can
be safely used in commands when they are inside targets
without the need of WX_PREMK.

6.21.7.Â Additional configure
Arguments

Some GNU configure scripts cannot
find wxWidgets with just the
WX_CONFIG environment variable set,
requiring additional arguments.
WX_CONF_ARGS can be used for
provide them.

TableÂ 6.35.Â Legal Values for
WX_CONF_ARGS

Possible value

Resulting argument

absolute

--with-wx-config=${WX_CONFIG}

relative

--with-wx=${LOCALBASE}
--with-wx-config=${WX_CONFIG:T}

6.22.Â Using Lua

This section describes the status of the
Lua libraries in the ports tree and
its integration with the ports system.

6.22.1.Â Introduction

There are many versions of the
Lua libraries and corresponding
interpreters, which conflict between them (install files
under the same name). In the ports tree this problem has
been solved by installing each version under a different
name using version number suffixes.

The obvious disadvantage of this is that each
application has to be modified to find the expected version.
But it can be solved by adding some additional flags to the
compiler and linker.

The directory under
${PREFIX}/bin,
${PREFIX}/share and
${PREFIX}/lib where
Lua is installed

LUA_INCDIR

The directory where
Lua and
tolua header files are
installed

LUA_LIBDIR

The directory where
Lua and
tolua libraries are
installed

LUA_MODLIBDIR

The directory where
Lua module libraries
(.so) are installed

LUA_MODSHAREDIR

The directory where
Lua modules
(.lua) are installed

LUA_PKGNAMEPREFIX

The package name prefix used by
Lua modules

LUA_CMD

The path to the Lua
interpreter

LUAC_CMD

The path to the Lua
compiler

6.23.Â Using iconv

After 2013-10-08 (254273),
FreeBSDÂ 10-CURRENT and newer versions have a native
iconv in the operating system. On earlier
versions, converters/libiconv
was used as a dependency.

For software that needs iconv, define
USES=iconv. FreeBSD versions before
10-CURRENT on 2013-08-13 (254273) do
not have a native iconv. On these earlier
versions, a dependency on
converters/libiconv will be
added automatically.

6.27.Â Starting and Stopping Services (rc
Scripts)

rc.d scripts are used to start
services on system startup, and to give administrators a
standard way of stopping, starting and restarting the service.
Ports integrate into the system rc.d
framework. Details on its usage can be found in the
rc.d Handbook chapter. Detailed explanation of
the available commands is provided in rc(8) and
rc.subr(8). Finally, there is
an
article on practical aspects of
rc.d scripting.

With a mythical port called
doorman, which needs to start a
doormand daemon. Add the following
to the Makefile:

USE_RC_SUBR= doormand

Multiple scripts may be listed and will be installed.
Scripts must be placed in the files
subdirectory and a .in suffix must be added
to their filename. Standard SUB_LIST
expansions will be ran against this file. Use of the
%%PREFIX%% and
%%LOCALBASE%% expansions is strongly
encouraged as well. More on SUB_LIST in
the relevant
section.

As of FreeBSDÂ 6.1-RELEASE, local
rc.d scripts (including those installed
by ports) are included in the overall rcorder(8) of the
base system.

Unless there is a very good reason to start the service
earlier, or it runs as a particular user (other than root), all
ports scripts must use:

REQUIRE: LOGIN

If the startup script launches a daemon that must be
shutdown, the following will trigger a stop of the service on
system shutdown:

KEYWORD: shutdown

If the script is not starting a persistent service this is
not necessary.

For optional configuration elements the "="
style of default variable assignment is preferable to the
":=" style here, since the former sets a default
value only if the variable is unset, and the latter sets one
if the variable is unset or null. A user
might very well include something like:

doormand_flags=""

in their rc.conf.local, and a
variable substitution using ":=" would
inappropriately override the user's intention. The
_enable variable is not optional,
and must use the ":" for the default.

6.27.1.Â Pre-Commit Checklist

Before contributing a port with an
rc.d script, and more importantly,
before committing one, please consult this
checklist to be sure that it is ready.

The devel/rclint
port can check for most of these, but it is not a
substitute for proper review.

If this is a new file, does it have a
.sh extension? If so, that must be
changed to just
file.in
since rc.d files may not end with
that extension.

Does the file have a
$FreeBSD$ tag?

Do the name of the file (minus
.in), the
PROVIDE line, and
$name
all match? The file name matching
PROVIDE makes debugging easier,
especially for rcorder(8) issues. Matching the
file name and
$name
makes it easier to figure out which variables are
relevant in rc.conf[.local]. It is
also a policy
for all new scripts, including those in the base
system.

Is the REQUIRE line set to
LOGIN? This is mandatory for scripts
that run as a non-root user. If it runs as root, is
there a good reason for it to run prior to
LOGIN? If not, it must run after
so that local scrips can be loosely grouped to a point in
rcorder(8) after most everything in the base is
already running.

Does the script start a persistent service? If so,
it must have KEYWORD:
shutdown.

Make sure there is no
KEYWORD: FreeBSD present. This has
not been necessary nor desirable for years. It is also
an indication that the new script was copy/pasted from
an old script, so extra caution must be given to the
review.

If the script uses an interpreted language like
perl, python, or
ruby, make certain that
command_interpreter is set
appropriately, for example, for
Perl, by adding
PERL=${PERL} to
SUB_LIST and using
%%PERL%%. Otherwise,

Are there default assignments to empty strings?
They should be removed, but double-check that the option
is documented in the comments at the top of the
file.

Are things that are set in variables actually used
in the script?

Are options listed in the default
name_flags
things that are actually mandatory? If so, they must
be in command_args.
-d is a red flag (pardon the
pun) here, since it is usually the option to
“daemonize” the process, and therefore is
actually mandatory.

name_flags
must never be included in
command_args (and vice versa,
although that error is less common).

Does the script execute any code unconditionally?
This is frowned on. Usually these things must be
dealt with through a
start_precmd.

All boolean tests must use the
checkyesno function. No
hand-rolled tests for [Yy][Ee][Ss],
etc.

If there is a loop (for example, waiting for
something to start) does it have a counter to terminate
the loop? We do not want the boot to be stuck forever
if there is an error.

Does the script create files or directories that
need specific permissions, for example, a
pid that needs to be owned by
the user that runs the process? Rather than the
traditional touch(1)/chown(8)/chmod(1)
routine, consider using install(1) with the proper
command line arguments to do the whole procedure with
one step.

6.28.Â Adding Users and Groups

Some ports require a particular user account to be present,
usually for daemons that run as that user. For these ports,
choose a unique UID from 50 to 999 and
register it in ports/UIDs (for users) and
ports/GIDs (for groups). The unique
identification should be the same for users and groups.

Please include a patch against these two files when
requiring a new user or group to be created for the
port.

Then use USERS and
GROUPS in
Makefile, and the user will be
automatically created when installing the port.

USERS= pulse
GROUPS= pulse pulse-access pulse-rt

The current list of reserved UIDs and GIDs can be found
in ports/UIDs and
ports/GIDs.

6.29.Â Ports That Rely on Kernel Sources

Some ports (such as kernel loadable modules) need the
kernel source files so that the port can compile. Here is the
correct way to determine if the user has them
installed:

USES= kmod

Apart from this check, the kmod feature
takes care of most items that these ports need to take into
account.

6.30.Â Go Libraries

Ports must not package or install Go libs or source code.
Only lang/go* should install into
GO_SRCDIR and GO_LIBDIR.
Go ports must fetch the required deps at the normal fetch time
and should only install the programs and things users need, not
the things Go developers would need.

Ports should (in order of preference):

Use vendored dependencies included with the package
source.

Fetch the versions of deps specified by upstream (in the
case of vendor.json or similar).

As a last resort (deps are not included nor versions
specified exactly) fetch versions of dependencies available
at the time of upstream development/release.

6.31.Â Shell Completion Files

Many modern shells (including bash, tcsh, and zsh) support
parameter and/or option tab-completion. This support usually
comes from completion files, which contain the definitions for
how tab completion will work for a certain command. Ports
sometimes ship with their own completion files, or porters may
have created them themselves.

When available, completion files should always be
installed. It is not necessary to make an option for it.
If an option is used, though, always enable it in
OPTIONS_DEFAULT.

TableÂ 6.39.Â Shell completion file paths

bash

${PREFIX}/etc/bash_completion.d

zsh

${PREFIX}/share/zsh/site-functions

Do not register any dependencies on the shells
themselves.

ChapterÂ 7.Â Flavors

7.1.Â An Introduction to Flavors

Flavors are a way to have multiple variations of a port.
The port is built multiple times, with variations. For example,
a port can have a normal version with many features and quite a
few dependencies, and a light “lite” version with
only basic features and minimal dependencies.

7.2.Â Using FLAVORS

To declare a port having multiple flavors, add
FLAVORS to its Makefile.
The first flavor in FLAVORS is the default
flavor.

Tip:

It can help simplify the logic of the
Makefile to also define
FLAVOR as:

FLAVOR?= ${FLAVORS:[1]}

Important:

To distinguish flavors from options, which are always
uppercase letters, flavor names can only
contain lowercase letters, numbers, and the underscore
_.

ExampleÂ 7.1.Â Basic Flavors Usage

If a port has a “lite” slave port, the slave
port can be removed, and the port can be converted to flavors
with:

Here is a slightly edited excerpt of what is present in
devel/libpeas, a port that
uses the Python
flavors. With the default
Python 2 and 3 versions being 2.7
and 3.6, it will automatically get FLAVORS=py27
py36

This port does not use
USE_PYTHON=distutils but needs
Python flavors anyway.

To guard against FLAVOR being
empty, which would cause a make(1) error, use
${FLAVOR:U} in string comparisons
instead of ${FLAVOR}.

The GnomePython gobject3 bindings have
two different names, one for
Python 2, pygobject3 and one
for Python 3,
py3gobject3.

The configure script has to run in
${WRKSRC}, but we are only interested
in building and installing the Python 2 or Python 3 parts
of the software, so set the build and install base
directories appropriately.

Hint about the correct
Python 3 config script
path name.

The packing list is different when the built with
Python 3. As there are three
possible Python 3 versions, set
PLIST for all three using the helper.

7.2.1.Â Flavors Helpers

To make the Makefile easier to write,
a few flavors helpers exist.

This list of helpers will set their variable:

flavor_PKGNAMEPREFIX

flavor_PKGNAMESUFFIX

flavor_PLIST

flavor_DESCR

This list of helpers will append to their variable:

flavor_CONFLICTS

flavor_CONFLICTS_BUILD

flavor_CONFLICTS_INSTALL

flavor_PKG_DEPENDS

flavor_EXTRACT_DEPENDS

flavor_PATCH_DEPENDS

flavor_FETCH_DEPENDS

flavor_BUILD_DEPENDS

flavor_LIB_DEPENDS

flavor_RUN_DEPENDS

flavor_TEST_DEPENDS

ExampleÂ 7.4.Â Flavor Specific PKGNAME

As all packages must have a different package name,
flavors must change theirs, using
flavor_PKGNAMEPREFIX
and
flavor_PKGNAMESUFFIX
makes this easy:

FLAVORS= normal lite
lite_PKGNAMESUFFIX= -lite

7.3.Â Flavors Auto-Activation

7.3.1.Â USES=python and Flavors

When using USES=python
and USE_PYTHON=distutils, the port will
automatically have FLAVORS filled in with
the Python versions it
supports.

ExampleÂ 7.5.Â Simple USES=python

Supposing the current Python
supported versions are 2.7, 3.4, 3.5, and 3.6, and the
default Python 2 and 3 versions
are 2.7 and 3.6, a port with:

USES= python
USE_PYTHON= distutils

Will get these flavors: py27, and
py36.

USES= python
USE_PYTHON= distutils allflavors

Will get these flavors: py27,
py34, py35 and
py36.

ExampleÂ 7.6.Â USES=python with Version
Requirements

Supposing the current Python
supported versions are 2.7, 3.4, 3.5, and 3.6, and the
default Python 2 and 3 versions
are 2.7 and 3.6, a port with:

USES= python:-3.5
USE_PYTHON= distutils

Will get this flavor: py27.

USES= python:-3.5
USE_PYTHON= distutils allflavors

Will get these flavors: py27,
py34, and py35.

USES= python:3.4+
USE_PYTHON= distutils

Will get this flavor: py36.

USES= python:3.4+
USE_PYTHON= distutils allflavors

Will get these flavors: py34,
py35, and py36.

PY_FLAVOR will be available to depend
on the correct version of Python
modules. This is most useful for ports that are not
Python modules and do not have
Python flavors but do use
python for some part of their
operations.

ExampleÂ 7.7.Â For a Port Not Using
distutils

If the default Python 3
version is 3.6, the following will set
PY_FLAVOR to
py36:

8.1.Â Changing pkg-plist Based on Make
Variables

Some ports, particularly the p5- ports,
need to change their pkg-plist depending on
what options they are configured with (or version of
perl, in the case of p5-
ports). To make this easy, any instances in
pkg-plist of %%OSREL%%,
%%PERL_VER%%, and
%%PERL_VERSION%% will be substituted
appropriately. The value of %%OSREL%% is the
numeric revision of the operating system (for example,
4.9). %%PERL_VERSION%%
and %%PERL_VER%% is the full version number
of perl (for example,
5.8.9). Several other
%%VARS%% related
to port's documentation files are described in the relevant
section.

To make other substitutions, set
PLIST_SUB with a list of
VAR=VALUE
pairs and instances of
%%VAR%% will be
substituted with VALUE in
pkg-plist.

For instance, if a port installs many files
in a version-specific subdirectory, use a placeholder for the
version so that pkg-plist does not have to
be regenerated every time the port is updated. For
example:

in the Makefile and use
%%OCTAVE_VERSION%% wherever the version shows
up in pkg-plist. When
the port is upgraded, it will not be necessary to edit dozens
(or in some cases, hundreds) of lines in
pkg-plist.

If files are installed conditionally on the options
set in the port, the usual way of handling it is prefixing
pkg-plist lines with a
%%OPT%% for lines needed when the option is
enabled, or %%NO_OPT%% when the option is
disabled, and adding OPTIONS_SUB=yes to the
Makefile. See SectionÂ 5.13.3.1, “OPTIONS_SUB” for more information.

For instance, if there are files that are only installed
when the X11 option is enabled, and
Makefile has:

OPTIONS_DEFINE= X11
OPTIONS_SUB= yes

In pkg-plist, put
%%X11%% in front of the lines only being
installed when the option is enabled, like this :

%%X11%%bin/foo-gui

This substitution will be done between the
pre-install and
do-install targets, by reading from
PLIST and writing to
TMPPLIST (default:
WRKDIR/.PLIST.mktmp). So if the port
builds PLIST on the fly, do so in or before
pre-install. Also, if the port
needs to edit the resulting file, do so in
post-install to a file named
TMPPLIST.

Another way of modifying a port's packing list is based on
setting the variables PLIST_FILES and
PLIST_DIRS. The value of each variable is
regarded as a list of pathnames to write to
TMPPLIST along with
PLIST contents. While names listed in
PLIST_FILES and
PLIST_DIRS are subject to
%%VAR%%
substitution as described above, it is better to use the
${VAR} directly.
Except for that, names from
PLIST_FILES will appear in the final packing
list unchanged, while @dir
will be prepended to names from
PLIST_DIRS. To take effect,
PLIST_FILES and
PLIST_DIRS must be set before
TMPPLIST is written, that is, in
pre-install or earlier.

From time to time, using OPTIONS_SUB
is not enough. In those cases, adding a specific
TAG to
PLIST_SUB
inside the Makefile with a special
value of @comment, makes package tools to
ignore the line. For instance, if some files are only installed
when the X11 option is on and the
architecture is i386:

8.2.Â Empty Directories

8.2.1.Â Cleaning Up Empty Directories

When being de-installed, a port has to remove empty
directories it created. Most of these directories are removed
automatically by pkg(8), but for directories created
outside of ${PREFIX}, or empty
directories, some more work needs to be done. This is usually
accomplished by adding @dir lines for those
directories. Subdirectories must be deleted before deleting
parent directories.

[...]
@dir /var/games/oneko/saved-games
@dir /var/games/oneko

8.2.2.Â Creating Empty Directories

Empty directories created during port installation need
special attention. They must be present when the package
is created. If they are not created by the port code, create
them in the Makefile:

post-install:
${MKDIR} ${STAGEDIR}${PREFIX}/some/directory

Add the directory to pkg-plist
like any other. For example:

@dir some/directory

8.3.Â Configuration Files

If the port installs configuration files to
PREFIX/etc (or elsewhere) do
not list them in
pkg-plist. That will cause
pkg delete to remove files that have been
carefully edited by the user, and a re-installation will wipe
them out.

Instead, install sample files with a
filename.sample
extension. The @sample macro automates this,
see SectionÂ 8.6.9, “@samplefile
[file]” for what it does
exactly. For each sample file, add a line to
pkg-plist:

@sample etc/orbit.conf.sample

If there is a very good reason not to install a working
configuration file by default, only list the sample filename in
pkg-plist, without the
@sample followed by a space part, and add a
message pointing out that the
user must copy and edit the file before the software will
work.

Tip:

When a port installs its configuration in a subdirectory
of ${PREFIX}/etc, use
ETCDIR, which defaults to
${PREFIX}/etc/${PORTNAME}, it can be
overridden in the ports Makefile if there
is a convention for the port to use some other directory. The
%%ETCDIR%% macro will be used in its
stead in pkg-plist.

Note:

The sample configuration files should always have the
.sample suffix. If for some historical
reason using the standard suffix is not possible, or if the
sample files come from some other directory, use
this construct:

@sample etc/orbit.conf-dist etc/orbit.conf

or

@sample %%EXAMPLESDIR%%/orbit.conf etc/orbit.conf

The format is @sample
sample-fileactual-config-file.

8.4.Â Dynamic Versus Static Package List

A static package list is a package
list which is available in the Ports Collection either as
pkg-plist (with or without variable
substitution), or embedded into the
Makefile via
PLIST_FILES and
PLIST_DIRS. Even if the contents are
auto-generated by a tool or a target in the Makefile
before the inclusion into the Ports
Collection by a committer (for example, using make
makeplist>), this is still considered a static list,
since it is possible to examine it without having to download or
compile the distfile.

A dynamic package list is a package
list which is generated at the time the port is compiled based
upon the files and directories which are installed. It is not
possible to examine it before the source code of the ported
application is downloaded and compiled, or after running a
make clean.

While the use of dynamic package lists is not forbidden,
maintainers should use static package lists wherever possible,
as it enables users to grep(1) through available ports to
discover, for example, which port installs a certain file.
Dynamic lists should be primarily used for complex ports where
the package list changes drastically based upon optional
features of the port (and thus maintaining a static package list
is infeasible), or ports which change the package list based
upon the version of dependent software used. For example, ports
which generate docs with
Javadoc.

8.5.Â Automated Package List Creation

First, make sure the port is almost complete, with only
pkg-plist missing. Running make
makeplist will show an example for
pkg-plist. The output of
makeplist must be double checked for
correctness as it tries to automatically guess a few things, and
can get it wrong.

User configuration files should be installed as
filename.sample,
as it is described in SectionÂ 8.3, “Configuration Files”.
info/dir must not be listed and
appropriate install-info lines must be
added as noted in the info
files section. Any libraries installed by the port
must be listed as specified in the shared libraries
section.

8.5.1.Â Expanding PLIST_SUB with Regular
Expressions

Strings to be replaced sometimes need to be very specific
to avoid undesired replacements. This is a common problem
with shorter values.

To address this problem, for each
PLACEHOLDER=value,
a
PLACEHOLDER_regex=regex
can be set, with the
regex part
matching value more
precisely.

ExampleÂ 8.1.Â Using PLIST_SUB with Regular Expressions

Perl ports can install
architecture dependent files in a specific tree. On FreeBSD to
ease porting, this tree is called mach.
For example, a port that installs a file whose path contains
mach could have that part of the path
string replaced with the wrong values. Consider this
Makefile:

8.6.Â Expanding Package List with Keywords

All keywords can also take optional arguments in
parentheses. The arguments are owner, group, and mode. This
argument is used on the file or directory referenced.
To change the owner, group, and mode of a configuration file,
use:

@sample(games,games,640) etc/config.sample

The arguments are optional. If only the group and mode
need to be changed, use:

@sample(,games,660) etc/config.sample

8.6.1.Â @desktop-file-utils

Will run update-desktop-database -q
after installation and deinstallation.

8.6.2.Â @fcdirectory

Add a @dir entry for the directory
passed as an argument, and run fc-cache -fs
on that directory after installation and
deinstallation.

8.6.3.Â @fcfontsdirdirectory

Add a @dir entry for the
directory passed as an argument, and run fc-cache
-fs, mkfontscale and
mkfontdir on that directory after
installation and deinstallation. Additionally, on
deinstallation, it removes the
fonts.scale and
fonts.dir cache files if they are
empty. This keyword is equivalent to adding both @fcdirectory and @fontsdirdirectory.

8.6.4.Â @fontsdirdirectory

Add a @dir entry for the
directory passed as an argument, and run
mkfontscale and
mkfontdir on that directory after
installation and deinstallation. Additionally, on
deinstallation, it removes the
fonts.scale and
fonts.dir cache files if they are
empty.

8.6.5.Â @glib-schemas

Runs glib-compile-schemas on
installation and deinstallation.

8.6.6.Â @infofile

Add the file passed as argument to the plist, and updates
the info document index on installation and deinstallation.
Additionally, it removes the index if empty on
deinstallation. This should never be used manually, but
always through INFO. See SectionÂ 5.12, “Info Files” for more information.

8.6.7.Â @klddirectory

Runs kldxref on the directory
on installation and deinstallation. Additionally, on
deinstallation, it will remove the directory if empty.

8.6.8.Â @rmtryfile

Will remove the file on deinstallation, and not give an
error if the file is not there.

8.6.9.Â @samplefile
[file]

This is used to handle installation of configuration
files, through example files bundled with the package. The
“actual”, non-sample, file is either the second
filename, if present, or the first filename without the
.sample extension.

This does three things. First, add the first file passed
as argument, the sample file, to the plist. Then, on
installation, if the actual file is not found, copy the sample
file to the actual file. And finally, on deinstallation,
remove the actual file if it has not been modified. See SectionÂ 8.3, “Configuration Files” for more information.

8.6.10.Â @shared-mime-infodirectory

Runs update-mime-database on the
directory on installation and deinstallation.

8.6.11.Â @shellfile

Add the file passed as argument to the plist.

On installation, add the full path to
file to
/etc/shells, while making sure it is not
added twice. On deinstallation, remove it from
/etc/shells.

8.6.12.Â @terminfo

Do not use by itself. If the port installs
*.terminfo
files, add USES=terminfo
to its Makefile.

On installation and deinstallation, if
tic is present, refresh
${PREFIX}/share/misc/terminfo.db from the
*.terminfo
files in ${PREFIX}/share/misc.

8.6.13.Â Base Keywords

There are a few keywords that are hardcoded, and
documented in pkg-create(8). For the sake of
completeness, they are also documented here.

8.6.13.1.Â @
[file]

The empty keyword is a placeholder to use when the
file's owner, group, or mode need to be changed. For
example, to set the group of the file to
games and add the setgid bit, add:

Execute command as part of
the package installation or deinstallation process.

@preexeccommand

Execute command as part
of the pre-install
scripts.

@postexeccommand

Execute command as part
of the post-install
scripts.

@preunexeccommand

Execute command as part
of the pre-deinstall
scripts.

@postunexeccommand

Execute command as part
of the post-deinstall
scripts.

If command contains
any of these
sequences somewhere in it, they are expanded
inline. For these examples, assume that
@cwd is set to
/usr/local and the last
extracted file was bin/emacs.

%F

Expand to the last filename extracted (as
specified). In the example case
bin/emacs.

%D

Expand to the current directory prefix, as set
with @cwd. In the example case
/usr/local.

%B

Expand to the basename of the fully qualified
filename, that is, the current directory prefix plus
the last filespec, minus the trailing filename. In
the example case, that would be
/usr/local/bin.

%f

Expand to the filename part of the fully qualified
name, or the converse of %B. In
the example case,
emacs.

8.6.13.3.Â @modemode

Set default permission for all subsequently extracted
files to mode. Format is the
same as that used by chmod(1). Use without an arg to
set back to default permissions (mode of the file while
being packed).

Important:

This must be a numeric mode, like
644, 4755, or
600. It cannot be a relative mode
like u+s.

8.6.13.4.Â @owneruser

Set default ownership for all subsequent files to
user. Use without an argument to
set back to default ownership (root).

8.6.13.5.Â @groupgroup

Set default group ownership for all subsequent files to
group. Use without an arg to set
back to default group ownership (wheel).

8.6.13.6.Â @commentstring

This line is ignored when packing.

8.6.13.7.Â @dirdirectory

Declare directory name. By default, directories created
under PREFIX by a package installation
are automatically removed. Use this when an empty directory
under PREFIX needs to be created, or when
the directory needs to have non default owner, group, or
mode. Directories outside of PREFIX need
to be registered. For example,
/var/db/${PORTNAME} needs to have a
@dir entry whereas
${PREFIX}/share/${PORTNAME} does not if
it contains files or uses the default owner, group, and
mode.

8.6.13.9.Â @dirrmdirectory (Deprecated)

Declare directory name to be deleted at deinstall time.
By default, directories created under
PREFIX by a package installation are
deleted when the package is deinstalled.

8.6.13.10.Â @dirrmtrydirectory (Deprecated)

Declare directory name to be removed, as for
@dirrm, but does not issue a warning if
the directory cannot be removed.

8.6.14.Â Creating New Keywords

Package list files can be extended by keywords that are
defined in the ${PORTSDIR}/Keywords
directory. The settings for each keyword are stored in a
UCL file named
keyword.ucl.
The file must contain at least one of these sections:

attributes

action

pre-install

post-install

pre-deinstall

post-deinstall

pre-upgrade

post-upgrade

8.6.14.1.Â attributes

Changes the owner, group, or mode used by the keyword.
Contains an associative array where the possible keys are
owner, group, and
mode. The values are, respectively, a
user name, a group name, and a file mode. For
example:

attributes: { owner: "games", group: "games", mode: 0555 }

8.6.14.2.Â action

Defines what happens to the keyword's parameter.
Contains an array where the possible values are:

setprefix

Set the prefix for the next plist entries.

dir

Register a directory to be created on install and
removed on deinstall.

dirrm

Register a directory to be deleted on deinstall.
Deprecated.

dirrmtry

Register a directory to try and deleted on
deinstall. Deprecated.

file

Register a file.

setmode

Set the mode for the next plist entries.

setowner

Set the owner for the next plist entries.

setgroup

Set the group for the next plist entries.

comment

Does not do anything, equivalent to not entering
an action section.

ignore_next

Ignore the next entry in the plist.

8.6.14.3.Â arguments

If set to true, adds argument
handling, splitting the whole line, %@,
into numbered arguments, %1,
%2, and so on. For example, for this
line:

@foo some.content other.content

%1 and %2 will
contain:

some.content
other.content

It also affects how the action
entry works. When there is more than one argument, the
argument number must be specified. For example:

This keyword does three things. It adds the first
filename passed as an argument
to @sample to the packing list, it adds
to the post-install script instructions
to copy the sample to the actual configuration file if it
does not already exist, and it adds to the
post-deinstall instructions to remove
the configuration file if it has not been modified.

ChapterÂ 9.Â pkg-*

There are some tricks we have not mentioned yet about the
pkg-* files that
come in handy sometimes.

9.1.Â pkg-message

To display a message when the package is installed,
place the message in pkg-message. This
capability is often useful to display additional installation
steps to be taken after a pkg install or to
display licensing information.

When some lines about the build-time knobs or warnings
have to be displayed, use ECHO_MSG.
pkg-message is only for
post-installation steps. Likewise, the distinction between
ECHO_MSG is for printing
informational text to the screen and ECHO_CMD
is for
command pipelining:

Note:

Do not add an entry for pkg-message
in pkg-plist.

9.2.Â pkg-install

If the port needs to execute commands when the binary
package is installed with pkg add or
pkg install, use
pkg-install. This script will
automatically be added to the package. It will be run twice by
pkg, the first time as ${SH}
pkg-install ${PKGNAME} PRE-INSTALL before the
package is installed, and the second time as
${SH} pkg-install ${PKGNAME}
POST-INSTALL after it has been installed.
$2 can be tested to determine which
mode the script is being run in. The PKG_PREFIX
environmental variable will be set to the package installation
directory.

9.3.Â pkg-deinstall

This script executes when a package is removed.

This script will be run twice by pkg
delete The first time as ${SH}
pkg-deinstall ${PKGNAME} DEINSTALL before the
port is de-installed and the second time as
${SH} pkg-deinstall ${PKGNAME}
POST-DEINSTALL after the port has been de-installed.
$2 can be tested to determine which
mode the script is being run in. The PKG_PREFIX
environmental variable will be set to the package installation
directory

9.4.Â Changing the Names of
pkg-*

All the names of
pkg-* are
defined using variables that can be changed in the
Makefile if needed. This is especially
useful when sharing the same
pkg-* files
among several ports or when it is necessary to write to one of
these files.
See writing to places other than
WRKDIR for why it is a bad idea to
write directly into
the directory containing the
pkg-*
files.

Here is a list of variable names and their default values.
(PKGDIR defaults to
${MASTERDIR}.)

Variable

Default value

DESCR

${PKGDIR}/pkg-descr

PLIST

${PKGDIR}/pkg-plist

PKGINSTALL

${PKGDIR}/pkg-install

PKGDEINSTALL

${PKGDIR}/pkg-deinstall

PKGMESSAGE

${PKGDIR}/pkg-message

9.5.Â Making Use of SUB_FILES and
SUB_LIST

SUB_FILES and
SUB_LIST are useful for dynamic
values in port files, such as the installation
PREFIX in
pkg-message.

SUB_FILES specifies a list
of files to be automatically modified. Each
file in the
SUB_FILES list must have a corresponding
file.in present
in FILESDIR. A modified version will be
created as
${WRKDIR}/file.
Files defined as a value of USE_RC_SUBR are
automatically added to SUB_FILES. For the files
pkg-message,
pkg-install, and
pkg-deinstall, the corresponding Makefile
variable is automatically set to point to the processed
version.

SUB_LIST is a list of
VAR=VALUE pairs. For each pair,
%%VAR%% will be replaced with
VALUE in each file listed in
SUB_FILES. Several common pairs are
automatically defined: PREFIX,
LOCALBASE, DATADIR,
DOCSDIR, EXAMPLESDIR,
WWWDIR, and ETCDIR. Any
line beginning with @comment followed by a
space, will be deleted
from resulting files after a variable substitution.

This example replaces
%%ARCH%% with the system architecture in a
pkg-message:

SUB_FILES= pkg-message
SUB_LIST= ARCH=${ARCH}

Note that for this example,
pkg-message.in must exist in
FILESDIR.

Example of a good
pkg-message.in:

Now it is time to configure this package.
Copy %%PREFIX%%/share/examples/putsy/%%ARCH%%.conf into your home directory
as .putsy.conf and edit it.

ChapterÂ 10.Â Testing the Port

10.1.Â Running make describe

Several of the FreeBSD port maintenance tools, such as
portupgrade(1), rely on a database called
/usr/ports/INDEX which keeps track of such
items as port dependencies. INDEX is
created by the top-level ports/Makefile via
make index, which descends into each port
subdirectory and executes make describe
there. Thus, if make describe fails in any
port, no one can generate INDEX, and many
people will quickly become unhappy.

Note:

It is important to be able to generate this file no matter
what options are present in make.conf, so
please avoid doing things such as using
.error statements when (for instance) a
dependency is not satisfied. (See
SectionÂ 13.16, “Avoid Use of the .error
Construct”.)

If make describe produces a string rather
than an error message, everything is probably safe. See
bsd.port.mk for the meaning of the string
produced.

Also note that running a recent version of
portlint (as specified in the next section)
will cause make describe to be run
automatically.

10.2.Â Portlint

Do check the port with portlint
before submitting or committing it. portlint
warns about many common errors, both functional and
stylistic. For a new (or repocopied) port,
portlint -A is the most thorough; for an
existing port, portlint -C is
sufficient.

Since portlint uses heuristics to try to
figure out errors, it can produce false positive warnings. In
addition, occasionally something that is flagged as a problem
really cannot be done in any other way due to limitations in the
ports framework. When in doubt, the best thing to do is ask on
FreeBSD ports mailing list.

10.3.Â Port Tools

port is the front-end script, which can
help simplify the testing job. Whenever a new port or an update
to an existing one needs testing, use
port test to test the port, including the
portlint
checking. This command also detects and lists any files that
are not listed in pkg-plist. For
example:

#port test /usr/ports/net/csup

10.4.Â PREFIX and
DESTDIR

PREFIX determines where the port will be
installed. It defaults to /usr/local, but
can be set by the user to a custom path like
/opt. The port must respect the value of
this variable.

DESTDIR, if set by the user, determines
the complete alternative environment, usually a jail or an
installed system mounted somewhere other than
/. A port will actually install into
DESTDIR/PREFIX, and register with the
package database in DESTDIR/var/db/pkg. As
DESTDIR is handled automatically by the ports
infrastructure with chroot(8). There is no need for
modifications or any extra care to write
DESTDIR-compliant ports.

The value of PREFIX will be set to
LOCALBASE (defaulting to
/usr/local). If
USE_LINUX_PREFIX is set,
PREFIX will be LINUXBASE
(defaulting to /compat/linux).

Avoiding hard-coded /usr/local paths in
the source makes the port much more flexible and able to cater
to the needs of other sites. Often, this can be accomplished by
replacing occurrences of /usr/local
in the port's various Makefiles with
${PREFIX}. This variable is
automatically passed down to every stage of the build and
install processes.

Make sure the application is not installing things in
/usr/local instead of
PREFIX. A quick test for such hard-coded
paths is:

%make clean; make package PREFIX=/var/tmp/`make -V PORTNAME`

If anything is installed outside of
PREFIX, the package creation process will
complain that it cannot find the files.

These tests will not find hard-coded paths inside the port's
files, nor will it verify that LOCALBASE is
being used to correctly refer to files from other ports. The
temporarily-installed port in
/var/tmp/`make -V PORTNAME` must be
tested for proper operation to make sure there are no problems
with paths.

PREFIX must not be set explicitly in a
port's Makefile. Users installing the port
may have set PREFIX to a custom location, and
the port must respect that setting.

Refer to programs and files from other ports with the
variables mentioned above, not explicit pathnames. For
instance, if the port requires a macro PAGER
to have the full pathname of less, do not use
a literal path of /usr/local/bin/less.
Instead, use ${LOCALBASE}:

-DPAGER=\"${LOCALBASE}/bin/less\"

The path with LOCALBASE is more likely to
still work if the system administrator has moved the whole
/usr/local tree somewhere else.

Tip:

All these tests are done automatically when running
poudriere testport or poudriere
bulk -t. It is highly recommended that every
ports contributor install and test their ports with it. See
SectionÂ 10.5, “Poudriere” for more
information.

10.5.Â Poudriere

For a ports contributor,
Poudriere is one of the most
important and helpful testing and build tools. Its main
features include:

Bulk building of the entire ports tree, specific subsets
of the ports tree, or a single port including its
dependencies

Testing of port builds before submitting a patch to the
FreeBSD bug tracker or committing to the ports tree

Testing for successful ports builds using different
options

Because Poudriere performs its
building in a clean jail(8) environment and uses
zfs(8) features, it has several advantages over traditional
testing on the host system:

No pollution of the host environment: No leftover files,
no accidental removals, no changes of existing configuration
files.

Verify pkg-plist for missing or
superfluous entries

Ports committers sometimes ask for a
Poudriere log alongside a patch
submission to assess whether the patch is ready for
integration into the ports tree

It is also quite straightforward to set up and use, has no
dependencies, and will run on any supported FreeBSD release. This
section shows how to install, configure, and run
Poudriere as part of the normal
workflow of a ports contributor.

The examples in this section show a default file layout, as
standard in FreeBSD. Substitute any local changes accordingly.
The ports tree, represented by ${PORTSDIR},
is located in /usr/ports. Both
${LOCALBASE} and ${PREFIX}
are /usr/local by default.

10.5.1.Â Installing Poudriere

There is also a work-in-progress version of
Poudriere which will eventually
become the next release. It is available in ports-mgmt/poudriere-devel. This
development version is used for the official FreeBSD package
builds, so it is well tested. It often has newer interesting
features. A ports committer will want to use the development
version because it is what is used in production, and has all
the new features that will make sure everything is exactly
right. A contributor will not necessarily need those as the
most important fixes are backported to released version. The
main reason for the use of the development version to build
the official package is because it is faster, in a way that
will shorten a full build from 18 hours to 17 hours when using
a high end 32 CPU server with 128GB of
RAM. Those optimizations will not matter a
lot when building ports on a desktop machine.

10.5.2.Â Setting Up Poudriere

The port installs a default configuration file,
/usr/local/etc/poudriere.conf. Each
parameter is documented in the configuration file and in
poudriere(8). Here is a minimal example config
file:

The name of the ZFS storage pool
which Poudriere shall use.
Must be listed in the output of zpool
status.

ZROOTFS

The root of
Poudriere-managed file
systems. This entry will cause
Poudriere to create
zfs(8) file systems under
tank/poudriere.

BASEFS

The root mount point for
Poudriere file systems. This
entry will cause Poudriere to
mount tank/poudriere to
/poudriere.

DISTFILES_CACHE

Defines where distfiles are stored. In this
example, Poudriere and the
host share the distfiles storage directory. This avoids
downloading tarballs which are already present on the
system.

RESOLV_CONF

Use the host /etc/resolv.conf
inside jails for DNS. This is needed
so jails can resolve the URLs of
distfiles when downloading. It is not needed when using
a proxy. Refer to the default configuration file for
proxy configuration.

FREEBSD_HOST

The FTP/HTTP
server to use when the jails are installed from FreeBSD
releases and updated with freebsd-update(8).
Choose a server location which is close, for example if
the machine is located in Australia, use
ftp.au.freebsd.org.

SVN_HOST

The server from where jails are installed and
updated when using
Subversion. Also used for
ports tree when not using portsnap(8). Again,
choose a nearby location. A list of official
Subversion mirrors can be
found in the FreeBSD
Handbook Subversion
section.

10.5.3.Â Creating Poudriere
Jails

Create the base jails which
Poudriere will use for
building:

#poudriere jail -c -j 93Ramd64 -v 9.3-RELEASE -a amd64

Fetch a 9.3-RELEASE for
amd64 from the FTP
server given by FREEBSD_HOST in
poudriere.conf, create the zfs file
system tank/poudriere/jails/93Ramd64, mount
it on /poudriere/jails/93Ramd64 and
extract the 9.3-RELEASE tarballs into this
file system.

#poudriere jail -c -j 10i386 -v stable/10 -a i386 -m svn+https

Create tank/poudriere/jails/10i386,
mount it on /poudriere/jails/10i386, then
check out the tip of the Subversion
branch of FreeBSD-10-STABLE from
SVN_HOST in
poudriere.conf into
/poudriere/jails/10i386/usr/src, then
complete a buildworld and install
it into /poudriere/jails/10i386.

Tip:

If a specific Subversion
revision is needed, append it to the version string. For
example:

#poudriere jail -c -j 10i386 -v stable/10@123456 -a i386 -m svn+https

Note:

While it is possible to build a newer version of FreeBSD on
an older version, most of the time it will not run. For
example, if a stable/10 jail is needed,
the host will have to run stable/10 too.
Running 10.0-RELEASE is not
enough.

Caution:

The default svn protocol works but is
not very secure. Using svn+https along
with verifying the remote server's SSL
fingerprint is advised. It will ensure that the files used
for building the jail are from a trusted source.

A list of jails currently known to
Poudriere can be shown with
poudriere jail -l:

10.5.4.Â Keeping Poudriere Jails
Updated

Managing updates is very straightforward. The
command:

#poudriere jail -u -j JAILNAME

updates the specified jail to the latest version
available. For FreeBSD releases, update to the latest patchlevel
with freebsd-update(8). For FreeBSD versions built from
source, update to the latest
Subversion revision in the
branch.

Tip:

For jails employing a
svn+* method,
it is helpful to add -J
NumberOfParallelBuildJobs
to speed up the build by increasing the number of parallel
compile jobs used. For example, if the building machine has
6 CPUs, use:

#poudriere jail -u -J 6 -j JAILNAME

10.5.5.Â Setting Up Ports Trees for Use with
Poudriere

There are multiple ways to use ports trees in
Poudriere. The most
straightforward way is to have
Poudriere create a default ports
tree for itself:

#poudriere ports -c

This command creates
tank/poudriere/ports/default, mount it on
/poudriere/ports/default, and populate it
using portsnap(8). Afterward it is included in the list
of known ports trees:

Note:

Note that the “default” ports tree is
special. Each of the build commands explained later will
implicitly use this ports tree unless specifically specified
otherwise. To use another tree, add -p
treename to the
commands.

While useful for regular bulk builds, having this default
ports tree with the portsnap(8) method may not be the
best way to deal with local modifications for a ports
contributor. As with the creation of jails, it is possible to
use a different method for creating the ports tree. To add an
additional ports tree for testing local modifications and
ports development, checking out the tree via
Subversion is possible:

#poudriere ports -c -m svn+https -p subversive

Note:

The http and https
methods need devel/subversion
built with the SERF option enabled. It
is enabled by default.

Creates tank/poudriere/ports/subversive
and mounts it on
/poudriere/ports/subversive. It is then
populated using Subversion.
Finally, it is added to the list of known ports trees:

Tip:

The svn method allows extra
qualifiers to tell Subversion
exactly how to fetch data. This is explained in
poudriere(8). For instance, poudriere ports
-c -m svn+ssh -p subversive uses
SSH for the checkout.

10.5.6.Â Using Manually Managed Ports Trees with Poudriere

Depending on the workflow, it can be extremely helpful to
use ports trees which are maintained manually. For instance,
if there is a local copy of the ports tree in
/work/ports, point
Poudriere to the location:

#poudriere ports -c -F -f none -M /work/ports -p development

This will be listed in the table of known trees:

#poudriere ports -l
PORTSTREE METHOD PATH
development - /work/ports

Note:

The dash in the METHOD column means
that Poudriere will not update or
change this ports tree, ever. It is completely up to the
user to maintain this tree, including all local
modifications that may be used for testing new ports and
submitting patches.

10.5.7.Â Keeping Poudriere Ports Trees Updated

As straightforward as with jails described earlier:

#poudriere ports -u -p PORTSTREE

Will update the given
PORTSTREE, one tree given by the
output of poudriere -l, to the latest
revision available on the official servers.

Note:

10.5.8.Â Testing Ports

After jails and ports trees have been set up, the result
of a contributor's modifications to the ports tree can be
tested.

For example, local modifications to the www/firefox port located in
/work/ports/www/firefox can be tested in
the previously created 9.3-RELEASE jail:

#poudriere testport -j 93Ramd64 -p development -o www/firefox

This will build all dependencies of
Firefox. If a dependency has been
built previously and is still up-to-date, the pre-built
package is installed. If a dependency has no up-to-date
package, one will be built with default options in a jail.
Then Firefox itself is
built.

The complete build of every port is logged to
/poudriere/data/logs/bulk/93Ri386-development/build-time/logs.

The directory name 93Ri386-development
is derived from the arguments to -j and
-p, respectively. For convenience, a
symbolic link
/poudriere/data/logs/bulk/93Ri386-development/latest
is also maintained. The link points to the latest
build-time directory. Also in this
directory is an index.html for observing
the build process with a web browser.

By default, Poudriere cleans up
the jails and leaves log files in the directories mentioned
above. To ease investigation, jails can be kept running after
the build by adding -i to
testport:

#poudriere testport -j 93Ramd64 -p development -i -o www/firefox

After the build completes, and regardless of whether it
was successful, a shell is provided within the jail. The
shell is used to investigate further.
Poudriere can be told to leave the
jail running after the build finishes with
-I. Poudriere
will show the command to run when the jail is no longer
needed. It is then possible to jexec(8) into it:

An integral part of the FreeBSD ports build infrastructure is
the ability to tweak ports to personal preferences with
options. These can be tested with
Poudriere as well. Adding the
-c:

#poudriere testport -c -o www/firefox

Presents the port configuration dialog before the port is
built. The ports given after -o in the
format
category/portname
will use the specified options, all dependencies will use the
default options. Testing dependent ports with non-default
options can be accomplished using sets, see SectionÂ 10.5.9, “Using Sets”.

Tip:

When testing ports where pkg-plist
is altered during build depending on the selected options,
it is recommended to perform a test run with all options
selected and one with all options
deselected.

10.5.9.Â Using Sets

For all actions involving builds, a so-called
set can be specified using -z
setname. A set refers
to a fully independent build. This allows, for instance,
usage of testport with non-standard options
for the dependent ports.

To use sets, Poudriere expects
an existing directory structure similar to
PORT_DBDIR, defaults to
/var/db/ports in its configuration
directory. This directory is then nullfs-mounted into the
jails where the ports and their dependencies are built.
Usually a suitable starting point can be obtained by
recursively copying the existing PORT_DBDIR
to
/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/jailname-portname-setname-options.
This is described in detail in poudriere(8). For
instance, testing www/firefox
in a specific set named devset, add the
-z devset parameter to the testport
command:

From this list, Poudriere
nullfs-mounts the first existing
directory tree into the /var/db/ports
directory of the build jails. Hence, all custom options are
used for all the ports during this run of
testport.

After the directory structure for a set is provided, the
options for a particular port can be altered. For
example:

#poudriere options -c www/firefox -z devset

The configuration dialog for www/firefox is shown, and options can
be edited. The selected options are saved to the
devset set.

Note:

Poudriere is very flexible in
the option configuration. They can be set for particular
jails, ports trees, and for multiple ports by one command.
Refer to poudriere(8) for details.

10.5.10.Â Providing a Custom make.conf
File

Similar to using sets,
Poudriere will also use a custom
make.conf if it is provided. No special
command line argument is necessary. Instead,
Poudriere looks for existing files
matching a name scheme derived from the command line. For
instance:

causes Poudriere to check for
the existence of these files in this order:

/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/make.conf

/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/devset-make.conf

/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/development-make.conf

/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/93Ramd64-make.conf

/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/93Ramd64-development-make.conf

/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/93Ramd64-devset-make.conf

/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/93Ramd64-development-devset-make.conf

Unlike with sets, all of the found files will be appended,
in that order, into one
make.conf inside the build jails. It is
hence possible to have general make variables, intended to
affect all builds in
/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/make.conf.
Special variables, intended to affect only certain jails or
sets can be set in specialised make.conf
files, such as
/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/93Ramd64-development-devset-make.conf.

ExampleÂ 10.1.Â Using make.conf to Change Default
Perl

To build a set with a non default
Perl version, for example,
5.20, using a set named
perl5-20, create a
perl5-20-make.conf with this
line:

DEFAULT_VERSIONS+= perl=5.20

Note:

Note the use of += so that if the
variable is already set in the default
make.conf its content will not be
overwritten.

10.5.11.Â Pruning no Longer Needed Distfiles

Poudriere comes with a built-in
mechanism to remove outdated distfiles that are no longer used
by any port of a given tree. The command

#poudriere distclean -p portstree

will scan the distfiles folder,
DISTFILES_CACHE in
poudriere.conf, versus the ports tree
given by the -p
portstree argument and
prompt for removal of those distfiles. To skip the prompt and
remove all unused files unconditionally, the
-y argument can be added:

#poudriere distclean -p portstree -y

10.6.Â Tinderbox

As an avid ports contributor, take
a look at Tinderbox. It is a
powerful system for building and testing ports. Install
Tinderbox using
ports-mgmt/tinderbox port. Be
sure to read supplied documentation since the configuration is
not trivial.

ChapterÂ 11.Â Upgrading a Port

When a port is not the most recent version available from the
authors, update the local working copy of
/usr/ports. The port might have already been
updated to the new version.

When working with more than a few ports, it will probably be
easier to use Subversion to keep
the whole ports collection up-to-date, as described in the Handbook.
This will have the added benefit of tracking all the port's
dependencies.

The next step is to see if there is an update already pending.
To do this, there are two options. There is a searchable
interface to the FreeBSD Problem
Report (PR) or bug database. Select Ports &
Packages in the Product multiple
select menu, and
enter the name of the port in the Summary
field.

However, sometimes people forget to put the name of the port
into the Summary field in an unambiguous fashion. In that
case, try searching in the Comment field in
the Detailled Bug Information section, or try
the
FreeBSD Ports Monitoring System
(also known as portsmon). This system
attempts to classify port PRs by portname. To search for PRs
about a particular port, use the Overview
of One Port.

If there is no pending PR, the next step is to send an email
to the port's maintainer, as shown by
make maintainer. That person may already be
working on an upgrade, or have a reason to not upgrade the port
right now (because of, for example, stability problems of the
new version), and there is no need to duplicate their work. Note
that unmaintained ports are listed with a maintainer of
ports@FreeBSD.org, which is just the general
ports mailing list, so sending mail there probably will not help
in this case.

If the maintainer asks you to do the upgrade or there is
no maintainer, then help out FreeBSD by
preparing the update! Please do this by using the
diff(1) command in the base system.

To create a suitable diff for a single
patch, copy the file that needs patching to
something.orig,
save the changes to
something and then
create the patch:

%diff -u something.orig something > something.diff

Otherwise, either use the
svn diff method (SectionÂ 11.1, “Using Subversion to Make
Patches”)
or copy the contents of the port to an entire different
directory and use the result of the recursive diff(1)
output of the new and old ports directories (for example, if the
modified port directory is called superedit
and the original is in our tree as
superedit.bak, then save the result of
diff -ruN superedit.bak superedit). Either
unified or context diff is fine, but port committers generally
prefer unified diffs. Note the use of the -N
option—this is the accepted way to force diff to properly
deal with the case of new files being added or old files being
deleted. Before sending us the diff, please examine the output
to make sure all the changes make sense. (In particular, make
sure to first clean out the work directories with
make clean).

Note:

If some files have been added, copied, moved, or removed,
add this information to the problem report so that the committer
picking up the patch will know what svn(1) commands to
run.

To simplify common operations with patch files, use
make makepatch as described in SectionÂ 4.4, “Patching”.
Other tools exists, like
/usr/ports/Tools/scripts/patchtool.py.
Before using it, please read
/usr/ports/Tools/scripts/README.patchtool.

If the port is unmaintained, and you are actively using
it, please consider volunteering to become its
maintainer. FreeBSD has over 4000 ports without maintainers, and
this is an area where more volunteers are always needed. (For a
detailed description of the responsibilities of maintainers,
refer to the section in the Developer's
Handbook.)

To submit the diff, use the bug submit
form (product Ports & Packages,
component Individual Port(s)). If the
submitter is also
maintaining the port, be sure to put
[MAINTAINER] at the beginning of the
Summary line. Always include the category
with the port name, followed by colon, and brief descripton of the
issue. For example:
category/portname:
add FOO option, or if
maintaining the port, [MAINTAINER]
category/portname:
Update to X.Y.
Please mention any added or
deleted files in the message, as they have to be explicitly
specified to svn(1) when doing a commit. Do not compress or
encode the diff.

Before submitting the bug, review the
Writing the problem report section in the Problem
Reports article. It contains far more information about how to
write useful problem reports.

Important:

If the upgrade is motivated by security concerns or a
serious fault in the currently committed port, please notify
the Ports Management Team <portmgr@FreeBSD.org> to request immediate rebuilding and
redistribution of the port's package. Unsuspecting users
of pkg will otherwise continue to install
the old version via pkg install for several
weeks.

Note:

Please use diff(1) or svn diff to
create updates to existing ports. Other formats include the
whole file and make it impossible to see just what has changed.
When diffs are not included, the entire update might be
ignored.

11.1.Â Using Subversion to Make
Patches

When possible, please submit a svn(1) diff. They
are easier to handle than diffs between
“new and old” directories. It is easier
to see what has changed, and to update the diff if
something was modified in the Ports Collection since the
work on it began, or if the
committer asks for something to be fixed. Also, a patch
generated with svn diff can be easily applied
with svn patch and will save some time to the
committer.

This will attempt to merge the differences between the
patch and current repository version. Watch the output
carefully. The letter in front of each file name
indicates what was done with it. See
TableÂ 11.1, “Subversion Update File
Prefixes” for a complete list.

TableÂ 11.1.Â Subversion Update File
Prefixes

U

The file was updated without problems.

G

The file was updated without problems (only when
working against a remote
repository).

M

The file had been modified, and was merged
without conflicts.

C

The file had been modified, and was merged with
conflicts.

If C is displayed as a result of
svn update, it means something changed in
the Subversion repository and
svn(1) was not able to merge the local changes with those
from the repository. It is always a good idea to inspect the
changes anyway, since svn(1) does not know anything about
the structure of a port, so it might (and probably will) merge
things that do not make sense.

Note:

If files have been added, copied, moved, or removed,
include the svn(1)add,
copy, move, and
remove commands that were used.
svn move or svn copy
must be run before the patch can be applied. svn
add or svn remove must be run
after the patch is applied.

Note:

It is recommended that the AFFECTS line contains a glob
matching all the ports affected by the entry so that
automated tools can parse it as easily as possible. If an
update concerns all the existing BIND
9 versions the AFFECTS
content must be users of dns/bind9*, it
must not be users of BIND
9

11.2.2.Â /usr/ports/MOVED

This file is used to
list moved or removed ports. Each line in the file is made
up of the name of the port, where the port was moved, when,
and why. If the port was removed, the section detailing where
it was moved can be left blank. Each section must be
separated by the | (pipe) character, like
so:

old name|new name (blank for deleted)|date of move|reason

The date must be entered in the form
YYYY-MM-DD. New entries are added to
the end of the list to keep it in chronological order,
with the oldest entry at the top of the list.

If a port was removed but has since been restored,
delete the line in this file that states that it was
removed.

If a port was renamed and then renamed back to its
original name, add a new one with the intermediate name to the
old name, and remove the old entry as to not create a
loop.

Note:

Any changes must be validated with
Tools/scripts/MOVEDlint.awk.

If using a ports directory other than
/usr/ports, use:

%cd /home/user/ports%env PORTSDIR=$PWD Tools/scripts/MOVEDlint.awk

ChapterÂ 12.Â Security

12.1.Â Why Security is So Important

Bugs are occasionally introduced to the software. Arguably,
the most dangerous of them are those opening security
vulnerabilities. From the technical viewpoint, such
vulnerabilities are to be closed by exterminating the bugs that
caused them. However, the policies for handling mere bugs and
security vulnerabilities are very different.

A typical small bug affects only those users who have
enabled some combination of options triggering the bug. The
developer will eventually release a patch followed by a new
version of the software, free of the bug, but the majority of
users will not take the trouble of upgrading immediately because
the bug has never vexed them. A critical bug that may cause
data loss represents a graver issue. Nevertheless, prudent
users know that a lot of possible accidents, besides software
bugs, are likely to lead to data loss, and so they make backups
of important data; in addition, a critical bug will be
discovered really soon.

A security vulnerability is all different. First, it may
remain unnoticed for years because often it does not cause
software malfunction. Second, a malicious party can use it to
gain unauthorized access to a vulnerable system, to destroy or
alter sensitive data; and in the worst case the user will not
even notice the harm caused. Third, exposing a vulnerable
system often assists attackers to break into other systems that
could not be compromised otherwise. Therefore closing a
vulnerability alone is not enough: notify the audience
of it in the most clear and comprehensive manner, which
will allow them to evaluate the danger and take appropriate
action.

12.2.Â Fixing Security Vulnerabilities

While on the subject of ports and packages, a security
vulnerability may initially appear in the original distribution
or in the port files. In the former case, the original software
developer is likely to release a patch or a new version
instantly. Update the port promptly
with respect to the author's fix. If the fix is delayed for
some reason, either
mark the port as
FORBIDDEN or introduce a patch file
to the port. In the case of a vulnerable port, just
fix the port as soon as possible. In either case, follow
the standard procedure for
submitting changes unless having
rights to commit it directly to the ports tree.

Important:

Being a ports committer is not enough to commit to an
arbitrary port. Remember that ports usually have maintainers,
must be respected.

Please make sure that the port's revision is bumped as soon
as the vulnerability has been closed. That is how the users who
upgrade installed packages on a regular basis will see they need
to run an update. Besides, a new package will be built and
distributed over FTP and WWW mirrors, replacing the vulnerable
one. Bump PORTREVISION unless
DISTVERSION has changed in the course of
correcting the vulnerability. That is, bump
PORTREVISION if adding a patch file
to the port, but do not bump it if updating the port to
the latest software version and thus already touched
DISTVERSION. Please refer to the
corresponding
section for more information.

12.3.Â Keeping the Community Informed

12.3.1.Â The VuXML Database

A very important and urgent step to take as early after a
security vulnerability is discovered as possible is to notify
the community of port users about the jeopardy. Such
notification serves two purposes. First, if the danger is
really severe it will be wise to apply an instant workaround.
For example, stop the affected network service or even
deinstall the port completely until the vulnerability is
closed. Second, a lot of users tend to upgrade installed
packages only occasionally. They will know from the
notification that they must update the
package without delay as soon as a corrected version is
available.

Given the huge number of ports in the tree, a security
advisory cannot be issued on each incident without creating a
flood and losing the attention of the audience when it comes
to really serious matters. Therefore security vulnerabilities
found in ports are recorded in
the FreeBSD
VuXML database. The Security Officer Team members
also monitor it for issues requiring their
intervention.

Committers can update the VuXML
database themselves, assisting the Security Officer Team and
delivering crucial information to the community more quickly.
Those who are not committers or have discovered an
exceptionally severe vulnerability should not hesitate to
contact the Security Officer Team directly, as described on
the FreeBSD
Security Information page.

The VuXML database is an XML document.
Its source file vuln.xml is kept right
inside the port security/vuxml.
Therefore the file's full pathname will be
PORTSDIR/security/vuxml/vuln.xml. Each
time a security vulnerability is discovered in a port, please
add an entry for it to that file. Until familiar with
VuXML, the best thing to do is to find an existing entry
fitting the case at hand, then copy it and use it as a
template.

12.3.2.Â A Short Introduction to VuXML

The full-blown XML format is complex,
and far beyond the scope of this book. However, to gain basic
insight on the structure of a VuXML entry only the notion of
tags is needed. XML tag names are enclosed in angle brackets.
Each opening <tag> must have a matching closing
</tag>. Tags may be nested. If nesting, the inner tags
must be closed before the outer ones. There is a hierarchy of
tags, that is, more complex rules of nesting them. This is
similar to HTML. The major difference is that XML is
eXtensible, that is, based on defining
custom tags. Due to its intrinsic structure XML puts
otherwise amorphous data into shape. VuXML is particularly
tailored to mark up descriptions of security
vulnerabilities.

The tag names are supposed to be self-explanatory so we
shall take a closer look only at fields which needs to be
filled in:

This is the top-level tag of a VuXML entry. It has a
mandatory attribute, vid, specifying a
universally unique identifier (UUID) for this entry (in
quotes). Generate a UUID for each new VuXML
entry (and do not forget to substitute it for the template
UUID unless writing the entry from scratch).
use uuidgen(1) to generate a VuXML UUID.

This is a one-line description of the issue
found.

The names of packages affected are listed there.
Multiple names can be given since several packages may be
based on a single master port or software product. This
may include stable and development branches, localized
versions, and slave ports featuring different choices of
important build-time configuration options.

Important:

It is the submitter's responsibility to find all
such related packages when writing a VuXML entry. Keep
in mind that make search name=foo is
helpful. The primary points to look for are:

the foo-devel variant for a
foo port;

other variants with a suffix like
-a4 (for print-related packages),
-without-gui (for packages with X
support disabled), or similar;

jp-, ru-,
zh-, and other possible localized
variants in the corresponding national categories of
the ports collection.

Affected versions of the package(s) are specified
there as one or more ranges using a combination of
<lt>,
<le>,
<eq>,
<ge>, and
<gt> elements. Check that the
version ranges given do not overlap.

In a range specification, *
(asterisk) denotes the smallest version number. In
particular, 2.* is less than
2.a. Therefore an asterisk may be used
for a range to match all possible
alpha, beta, and
RC versions. For instance,
<ge>2.*</ge><lt>3.*</lt>
will selectively match every 2.x
version while
<ge>2.0</ge><lt>3.0</lt>
will not since the latter misses 2.r3
and matches 3.b.

The above example specifies that affected are versions
from 1.6 to 1.9
inclusive, versions 2.x before
2.4_1, and version
3.0b1.

Several related package groups (essentially, ports)
can be listed in the <affected>
section. This can be used if several software products
(say FooBar, FreeBar and OpenBar) grow from the same code
base and still share its bugs and vulnerabilities. Note
the difference from listing multiple names within a single
<package> section.

The version ranges have to allow for
PORTEPOCH and
PORTREVISION if applicable. Please
remember that according to the collation rules, a version
with a non-zero PORTEPOCH is greater
than any version without PORTEPOCH,
for example, 3.0,1 is greater than
3.1 or even than
8.9.

This is a summary of the issue. XHTML is used in this
field. At least enclosing <p>
and </p> has to appear. More
complex mark-up may be used, but only for the sake of
accuracy and clarity: No eye candy please.

This section contains references to relevant
documents. As many references as apply are
encouraged.

13.1.Â Introduction

Here is a list of common dos and don'ts that are encountered
during the porting process. Check the port against this list,
but also check ports in the PR
database that others have submitted. Submit any
comments on ports as described in Bug
Reports and General Commentary. Checking ports in the
PR database will both make it faster for us to commit them, and
prove that you know what you are doing.

13.2.Â WRKDIR

Do not write anything to files outside
WRKDIR. WRKDIR is the
only place that is guaranteed to be writable during the port
build (see
installing ports from a CDROM for an example of
building ports from a read-only tree). The
pkg-* files can
be modified by redefining a
variable rather than overwriting the file.

13.3.Â WRKDIRPREFIX

Make sure the port honors WRKDIRPREFIX.
Most ports do not have to worry about this. In particular, when
referring to a WRKDIR of another
port, note that the correct location is
WRKDIRPREFIXPORTSDIR/subdir/name/work
not
PORTSDIR/subdir/name/work
or
.CURDIR/../../subdir/name/work
or some such.

Also, if defining WRKDIR,
make sure to prepend
${WRKDIRPREFIX}${.CURDIR} in
the front.

13.4.Â Differentiating Operating Systems and OS Versions

Some code needs modifications or
conditional compilation based upon what version of FreeBSD Unix it
is running under. The preferred way to tell FreeBSD versions apart
are the __FreeBSD_version and
__FreeBSD__ macros defined in sys/param.h.
If this file is not included add the code,

#include <sys/param.h>

to the proper place in the .c
file.

__FreeBSD__ is defined in all versions
of FreeBSD as their major version number. For example, in FreeBSD
9.x, __FreeBSD__ is defined to be
9.

Note:

When MASTERDIR is needed, always define
it before including
bsd.port.pre.mk.

Here are some examples of things that can be added after
bsd.port.pre.mk:

# no need to compile lang/perl5 if perl5 is already in system
.if ${OSVERSION} > 300003
BROKEN= perl is in system
.endif

Always use tab instead of spaces after
BROKEN=.

13.6.Â Use the exec Statement in Wrapper
Scripts

If the port installs a shell script whose purpose is to
launch another program, and if launching that program is the
last action performed by the script, make sure to launch the
program using the exec statement, for
instance:

#!/bin/sh
exec %%LOCALBASE%%/bin/java -jar %%DATADIR%%/foo.jar "$@"

The exec statement replaces the shell
process with the specified program. If
exec is omitted, the shell process remains
in memory while the program is executing, and needlessly
consumes system resources.

13.7.Â Do Things Rationally

The Makefile should do things in a
simple and reasonable manner. Making it a couple of lines
shorter or more readable is always better. Examples include
using a make .if construct instead of a shell
if construct, not redefining
do-extract if redefining
EXTRACT* is enough, and using
GNU_CONFIGURE instead of
CONFIGURE_ARGS
+= --prefix=${PREFIX}.

If a lot of new code is needed to do something, there may
already be an implementation of it in
bsd.port.mk. While hard to read, there are
a great many seemingly-hard problems for which
bsd.port.mk already provides a shorthand
solution.

13.8.Â Respect Both CC and
CXX

The port must respect both CC and
CXX. What we mean by this is that
the port must not set the values of these variables absolutely,
overriding existing values; instead, it may append whatever
values it needs to the existing values. This is so that build
options that affect all ports can be set globally.

If the port does not respect these variables,
please add
NO_PACKAGE=ignores either cc or cxx to the
Makefile.

Here is an example of a Makefile
respecting both CC and
CXX. Note the ?=:

CC?= gcc

CXX?= g++

Here is an example which respects neither
CC nor CXX:

CC= gcc

CXX= g++

Both CC and CXX
can be defined on FreeBSD systems in
/etc/make.conf. The first example defines
a value if it was not previously set in
/etc/make.conf, preserving any system-wide
definitions. The second example clobbers anything previously
defined.

13.9.Â Respect CFLAGS

The port must respect CFLAGS.
What we mean by this is that the port must not set
the value of this variable absolutely, overriding the existing
value. Instead, it may append whatever values it needs to the
existing value. This is so that build options that affect all
ports can be set globally.

If it does not, please add
NO_PACKAGE=ignores cflags to the
Makefile.

Here is an example of a Makefile
respecting CFLAGS. Note the
+=:

CFLAGS+= -Wall -Werror

Here is an example which does not respect
CFLAGS:

CFLAGS= -Wall -Werror

CFLAGS is defined on
FreeBSD systems in /etc/make.conf. The first
example appends additional flags to
CFLAGS, preserving any system-wide
definitions. The second example clobbers anything previously
defined.

Remove optimization flags from the third party
Makefiles. The system
CFLAGS contains system-wide optimization
flags. An example from an unmodified
Makefile:

CFLAGS= -O3 -funroll-loops -DHAVE_SOUND

Using system optimization flags, the
Makefile would look similar to this
example:

CFLAGS+= -DHAVE_SOUND

13.10.Â Verbose Build Logs

Make the port build system display all commands executed
during the build stage. Complete build logs are crucial to
debugging port problems.

Some build systems such as CMake,
ninja, and GNU
configure are set up for verbose logging by
the ports framework. In other cases, ports might need
individual tweaks.

13.11.Â Feedback

Do send applicable changes and patches to the upstream
maintainer for inclusion in the next release of the code.
This makes updating to the next release that much easier.

13.12.Â README.html

README.html is not part of the port,
but generated by make readme. Do not
include this file in patches or commits.

Note:

If make readme fails, make sure that
the default value of ECHO_MSG has not
been modified by the port.

13.13.Â Marking a Port as Architecture Neutral

Ports that do not have any architecture-dependent files
or requirements are identified by setting
NO_ARCH=yes.

13.14.Â Marking a Port Not Installable with
BROKEN, FORBIDDEN, or
IGNORE

In certain cases, users must be prevented from installing
a port. There are several variables that can be used in a
port's Makefile to tell the user that the
port cannot be installed. The value of
these make variables will be the
reason that is shown to users for why the port refuses to
install itself. Please use the correct make
variable. Each variable conveys radically different
meanings, both to users and to automated systems that depend on
Makefiles, such as
the ports build cluster,
FreshPorts, and
portsmon.

13.14.1.Â Variables

BROKEN is reserved for ports that
currently do not compile, install, deinstall, or run
correctly. Use it for ports where the problem
is believed to be temporary.

If instructed, the build cluster will still attempt
to try to build them to see if the underlying problem has
been resolved. (However, in general, the cluster is run
without this.)

For instance, use BROKEN when a
port:

does not compile

fails its configuration or installation
process

installs files outside of
${PREFIX}

does not remove all its files cleanly upon
deinstall (however, it may be acceptable, and
desirable, for the port to leave user-modified files
behind)

has runtime issues on systems where it is
supposed to run fine.

FORBIDDEN is used for ports that
contain a security vulnerability or induce grave concern
regarding the security of a FreeBSD system with a given port
installed (for example, a reputably insecure program or a
program that provides easily exploitable services). Mark
ports as FORBIDDEN as soon as a
particular piece of software has a vulnerability and there
is no released upgrade. Ideally upgrade ports as soon as
possible when a security vulnerability is discovered so as
to reduce the number of vulnerable FreeBSD hosts (we like
being known for being secure), however sometimes there is
a noticeable time gap between disclosure of a
vulnerability and an updated release of the vulnerable
software. Do not mark a port FORBIDDEN
for any reason other than security.

IGNORE is reserved for ports that
must not be built for some other reason. Use it
for ports where the problem is believed to be
structural. The build cluster will not, under any
circumstances, build ports marked as
IGNORE. For instance, use
IGNORE when a port:

does not work on the installed version of
FreeBSD

has a distfile which may not be automatically
fetched due to licensing restrictions

does not work with some other currently
installed port (for instance, the port depends on
www/apache20 but
www/apache22 is
installed)

Note:

If a port would conflict with a currently
installed port (for example, if they install a file in
the same place that performs a different function),
use
CONFLICTS instead.
CONFLICTS will set
IGNORE by itself.

To mark a port as IGNOREd
only on certain architectures, there are two other
convenience variables that will automatically set
IGNORE:
ONLY_FOR_ARCHS and
NOT_FOR_ARCHS. Examples:

ONLY_FOR_ARCHS= i386 amd64

NOT_FOR_ARCHS= ia64 sparc64

A custom IGNORE message can be
set using ONLY_FOR_ARCHS_REASON and
NOT_FOR_ARCHS_REASON. Per
architecture entries are possible with
ONLY_FOR_ARCHS_REASON_ARCH
and
NOT_FOR_ARCHS_REASON_ARCH.

If a port fetches i386 binaries and installs them,
set IA32_BINARY_PORT. If this variable
is set, /usr/lib32 must be present
for IA32 versions of libraries and the kernel must support
IA32 compatibility. If one of these two
dependencies is not satisfied, IGNORE
will be set automatically.

13.14.2.Â Implementation Notes

Do not quote the values of BROKEN,
IGNORE, and related variables. Due to the
way the information is shown to the user, the wording of
messages for each variable differ:

BROKEN= fails to link with base -lcrypto

IGNORE= unsupported on recent versions

resulting in this output from
make describe:

===> foobar-0.1 is marked as broken: fails to link with base -lcrypto.

===> foobar-0.1 is unsupported on recent versions.

13.15.Â Marking a Port for Removal with
DEPRECATED or
EXPIRATION_DATE

Do remember that BROKEN and
FORBIDDEN are to be used as a temporary
resort if a port is not working. Permanently broken ports
will be removed from the tree entirely.

When it makes sense to do so, users can be warned about
a pending port removal with DEPRECATED and
EXPIRATION_DATE. The former is a
string stating why the port is scheduled for removal; the latter
is a string in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD). Both will be shown
to the user.

It is possible to set DEPRECATED
without an EXPIRATION_DATE (for instance,
recommending a newer version of the port), but the converse
does not make any sense.

There is no set policy on how much notice to give.
Current practice seems to be one month for security-related
issues and two months for build issues. This also gives any
interested committers a little time to fix the problems.

13.16.Â Avoid Use of the .error
Construct

The correct way for a Makefile to
signal that the port cannot be installed due to some external
factor (for instance, the user has specified an illegal
combination of build options) is to set a non-blank value to
IGNORE. This value will be formatted and
shown to the user by make install.

It is a common mistake to use .error
for this purpose. The problem with this is that many automated
tools that work with the ports tree will fail in this situation.
The most common occurrence of this is seen when trying to build
/usr/ports/INDEX (see
SectionÂ 10.1, “Running make describe”). However, even more trivial
commands such as make maintainer also fail in
this scenario. This is not acceptable.

ExampleÂ 13.1.Â How to Avoid Using .error

The first of the
next two Makefile snippets will cause
make index to fail, while the second one
will not:

.error "option is not supported"

IGNORE=option is not supported

13.17.Â Usage of sysctl

The usage of sysctl is discouraged
except in targets. This is because the evaluation of any
makevars, such as used during
make index, then has to run the command,
further slowing down that process.

Only use sysctl(8) through
SYSCTL, as it contains the fully
qualified path and can be overridden, if one has such a
special need.

13.18.Â Rerolling Distfiles

Sometimes the authors of software change the content of
released distfiles without changing the file's name.
Verify that the changes are official and have been performed
by the author. It has happened in the past that the distfile
was silently altered on the download servers with the intent to
cause harm or compromise end user security.

Put the old distfile aside, download the new one, unpack
them and compare the content with diff(1). If there is
nothing suspicious, update
distinfo.

Important:

Be sure to summarize the differences in the PR and commit
log, so that other people know that nothing bad has
happened.

Contact the authors of the software
and confirm the changes with them.

13.19.Â Use POSIX Standards

FreeBSD ports generally expect POSIX
compliance. Some software and build systems make assumptions
based on a particular operating system or environment that can
cause problems when used in a port.

Do not use /proc if there are any
other ways of getting the information. For example,
setprogname(argv[0]) in
main() and then getprogname(3)
to know the executable name.

Do not rely on behavior that is undocumented by
POSIX.

Do not record timestamps in the critical path of the
application if it also works without. Getting timestamps may be
slow, depending on the accuracy of timestamps in the
OS. If timestamps are really needed,
determine how precise they have to be and use an
API which is documented to just deliver the
needed precision.

A number of simple syscalls (for example
gettimeofday(2), getpid(2)) are much faster on LinuxÂ®
than on any other operating system due to caching and the
vsyscall performance optimizations. Do not rely on them being
cheap in performance-critical applications. In general, try
hard to avoid syscalls if possible.

Do not rely on LinuxÂ®-specific socket behavior. In
particular, default socket buffer sizes are different (call
setsockopt(2) with SO_SNDBUF and
SO_RCVBUF, and while LinuxÂ®'s send(2)
blocks when the socket buffer is full, FreeBSD's will fail and
set ENOBUFS in errno.

If relying on non-standard behavior is required,
encapsulate it properly into a generic API,
do a check for the behavior in the configure stage, and stop
if it is missing.

Check the
man
pages to see if the function used is a
POSIX interface (in the
“STANDARDS” section of the man page).

Do not assume that /bin/sh is
bash. Ensure that a command line
passed to system(3) will work with a
POSIX compliant shell.

Check that headers are included in the
POSIX or man page recommended way. For
example, sys/types.h is often forgotten,
which is not as much of a problem for LinuxÂ® as it is for
FreeBSD.

13.20.Â Miscellanea

Always double-check pkg-descr and
pkg-plist.
If reviewing a port and a better wording can be achieved,
do so.

Do not copy more copies of the GNU General Public License
into our system, please.

Please be careful to note any legal issues! Do not let us
illegally distribute software!

ChapterÂ 14.Â A Sample Makefile

Here is a sample Makefile that can be
used to create a new port. Make sure to remove all the extra
comments (ones between brackets).

The format shown is the recommended one for ordering
variables, empty lines between sections, and so on. This format
is designed so that the most important information is easy to
locate. We recommend using
portlint to check the
Makefile.

[the header...just to make it easier for us to identify the ports.]
# $FreeBSD$
[ ^^^^^^^^^ This will be automatically replaced with RCS ID string by SVN
when it is committed to our repository. If upgrading a port, do not alter
this line back to "$FreeBSD$". SVN deals with it automatically.]
[section to describe the port itself and the master site - PORTNAME
and PORTVERSION or the DISTVERSION* variables are always first,
followed by CATEGORIES, and then MASTER_SITES, which can be followed
by MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR. PKGNAMEPREFIX and PKGNAMESUFFIX, if needed,
will be after that. Then comes DISTNAME, EXTRACT_SUFX and/or
DISTFILES, and then EXTRACT_ONLY, as necessary.]
PORTNAME= xdvi
DISTVERSION= 18.2
CATEGORIES= print
[do not forget the trailing slash ("/")!
if not using MASTER_SITE_* macros]
MASTER_SITES= ${MASTER_SITE_XCONTRIB}
MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR= applications
PKGNAMEPREFIX= ja-
DISTNAME= xdvi-pl18
[set this if the source is not in the standard ".tar.gz" form]
EXTRACT_SUFX= .tar.Z
[section for distributed patches -- can be empty]
PATCH_SITES= ftp://ftp.sra.co.jp/pub/X11/japanese/
PATCHFILES= xdvi-18.patch1.gz xdvi-18.patch2.gz
[If the distributed patches were not made relative to ${WRKSRC},
this may need to be tweaked]
PATCH_DIST_STRIP= -p1
[maintainer; *mandatory*! This is the person who is volunteering to
handle port updates, build breakages, and to whom a users can direct
questions and bug reports. To keep the quality of the Ports Collection
as high as possible, we do not accept new ports that are assigned to
"ports@FreeBSD.org".]
MAINTAINER= asami@FreeBSD.org
COMMENT= DVI Previewer for the X Window System
[license -- should not be empty]
LICENSE= BSD2CLAUSE
LICENSE_FILE= ${WRKSRC}/LICENSE
[dependencies -- can be empty]
RUN_DEPENDS= gs:print/ghostscript
[If it requires GNU make, not /usr/bin/make, to build...]
USES= gmake
[If it is an X application and requires "xmkmf -a" to be run...]
USES= imake
[If the source is obtained from github, remove MASTER_SITE* and...]
USE_GITHUB= yes
GH_ACCOUNT= example
[this section is for other standard bsd.port.mk variables that do not]
belong to any of the above]
[If it asks questions during configure, build, install...]
IS_INTERACTIVE= yes
[If it extracts to a directory other than ${DISTNAME}...]
WRKSRC= ${WRKDIR}/xdvi-new
[If it requires a "configure" script generated by GNU autoconf to be run]
GNU_CONFIGURE= yes
[et cetera.]
[If it requires options, this section is for options]
OPTIONS_DEFINE= DOCS EXAMPLES FOO
OPTIONS_DEFAULT= FOO
[If options will change the files in plist]
OPTIONS_SUB=yes
FOO_DESC= Enable foo support
FOO_CONFIGURE_ENABLE= foo
[non-standard variables to be used in the rules below]
MY_FAVORITE_RESPONSE= "yeah, right"
[then the special rules, in the order they are called]
pre-fetch:
i go fetch something, yeah
post-patch:
i need to do something after patch, great
pre-install:
and then some more stuff before installing, wow
[and then the epilogue]
.include <bsd.port.mk>

15.5.Â Generic
BROKEN/IGNORE/DEPRECATED
Messages

Note:

BROKEN*
and IGNORE*
can be any generic variables, for example,
IGNORE_amd64,
BROKEN_FreeBSD_10,
BROKEN_SSL, etc.

If the port is marked BROKEN when some conditions are
met, and such conditions can only be tested after including
bsd.port.options.mk or
bsd.port.pre.mk, then those variables
should be set later, in SectionÂ 15.11, “The Rest of the Variables”.

15.7.Â Flavors

Constructs setting variables not available as helpers using
.if ${FLAVOR:U} == foo should go in their
respective sections below.

15.8.Â USES and
USE_x

Start this section with defining USES,
and then possible
USE_x.

Keep related variables close together. For example, if
using USE_GITHUB,
always put the
GH_* variables
right after it.

15.9.Â Standard bsd.port.mk Variables

This section block is for variables that can be defined in
bsd.port.mk that do not belong in any
of the previous section blocks.

Order is not important, however try to keep similar
variables together. For example uid and gid variables
USERS and GROUPS.
Configuration variables
CONFIGURE_* and
*_CONFIGURE. List
of files, and directories PORTDOCS and
PORTEXAMPLES.

15.10.Â Options and Helpers

If the port uses the options framework, define
OPTIONS_DEFINE and
OPTIONS_DEFAULT first, then the other
OPTIONS_*
variables first, then the
*_DESC
descriptions, then the options helpers. Try and sort all of
those alphabetically.

ExampleÂ 15.1.Â Options Variables Order Example

The FOO and BAR
options do not have a standard description, so one need to
be written. The other options already have one in
Mk/bsd.options.desc.mk so writing one
is not needed. The DOCS and
EXAMPLES use target helpers to install
their files, they are shown here for completeness, though
they belong in SectionÂ 15.12, “The Targets”, so
other variables and targets could be inserted before
them.

The FreeBSD Ports Collection is constantly changing. Here is
some information on how to keep up.

16.1.Â FreshPorts

One of the easiest ways to learn about updates that have
already been committed is by subscribing to FreshPorts.
Multiple ports can be monitored. Maintainers are
strongly encouraged to subscribe, because they will receive
notification of not only their own changes, but also any changes
that any other FreeBSD committer has made. (These are often
necessary to keep up with changes in the underlying ports
framework—although it would be most polite to receive an
advance heads-up from those committing such changes, sometimes
this is overlooked or impractical. Also, in some
cases, the changes are very minor in nature. We expect everyone
to use their best judgement in these cases.)

To use FreshPorts, an account is required. Those with
registered email addresses at @FreeBSD.org
will see the opt-in link on the right-hand side of the web
pages. Those who already have a FreshPorts account but are not
using a @FreeBSD.org email address can change
the email to @FreeBSD.org, subscribe, then
change it back again.

FreshPorts also has a sanity test feature which
automatically tests each commit to the FreeBSD ports tree. If
subscribed to this service, a committer will receive
notifications of any errors which FreshPorts detects during
sanity testing of their commits.

16.2.Â The Web Interface to the Source Repository

It is possible to browse the files in the source
repository by using a web interface. Changes that affect the
entire port system are now documented in the CHANGES
file. Changes that affect individual ports are now documented
in the UPDATING
file. However, the definitive answer to any question is
undoubtedly to read the source code of bsd.port.mk,
and associated files.

16.3.Â The FreeBSD Ports Mailing List

As a ports maintainer, consider subscribing to
FreeBSD ports mailing list. Important changes to the way ports work will be
announced there, and then committed to
CHANGES.

16.4.Â The FreeBSD Port Building Cluster

One of the least-publicized strengths of FreeBSD is that
an entire cluster of machines is dedicated to continually
building the Ports Collection, for each of the major OS releases
and for each Tier-1 architecture.

Individual ports are built unless they are specifically
marked with IGNORE. Ports that are marked
with BROKEN will still be attempted, to see
if the underlying problem has been resolved. (This is done by
passing TRYBROKEN to the port's
Makefile.)

16.5.Â Portscout: the FreeBSD Ports Distfile Scanner

The build cluster is dedicated to building the latest
release of each port with distfiles that have already been
fetched. However, as the Internet continually changes,
distfiles can quickly go missing. Portscout,
the FreeBSD Ports distfile scanner, attempts to query every
download site for every port to find out if each distfile is
still available. Portscout can
generate HTML reports and send emails about
newly available ports to those who request them. Unless not
otherwise subscribed, maintainers are asked to check
periodically for changes, either by hand or using the
RSS feed.

Portscout's first page gives
the email address of the port maintainer, the number of ports
the maintainer is responsible for, the number of those ports
with new distfiles, and the percentage of those ports that are
out-of-date. The search function allows for searching by email
address for a specific maintainer, and for selecting whether
only out-of-date ports are shown.

Upon clicking on a maintainer's email address, a list of
all of their ports is displayed, along with port category,
current version number, whether or not there is a new version,
when the port was last updated, and finally when it was last
checked. A search function on this page allows the user to
search for a specific port.

Clicking on a port name in the list displays the FreshPorts port
information.

16.6.Â The FreeBSD Ports Monitoring System

Another handy resource is the FreeBSD Ports
Monitoring System (also known as
portsmon). This system comprises a database
that processes information from several sources and allows it to
be browsed via a web interface. Currently, the ports Problem
Reports (PRs), the error logs from the build cluster, and
individual files from the ports collection are used. In the
future, this will be expanded to include the distfile survey, as
well as other sources.

This is the only resource available that
maps PR entries to portnames. PR submitters do not
always include the portname in their Synopsis, although we would
prefer that they did. So, portsmon is a
good place to find out whether an existing
port has any PRs filed against it, any build errors, or
if a new port the porter is considering
creating has already been submitted.

17.1.Â An Introduction to USES

USES macros make it easy to declare
requirements and settings for a port. They can add
dependencies, change building behavior, add metadata to
packages, and so on, all by selecting simple, preset
values..

Each section in this chapter describes a possible value for
USES, along with its possible arguments.
Arguments are appeneded to the value after a colon
(:). Multiple arguments are separated by
commas (,).

ExampleÂ 17.1.Â Using Multiple Values

USES= bison perl

ExampleÂ 17.2.Â Adding an Argument

USES= gmake:lite

ExampleÂ 17.3.Â Adding Multiple Arguments

USES= drupal:7,theme

ExampleÂ 17.4.Â Mixing it All Together

USES= pgsql:9.3+ cpe python:2.7,build

17.2.Â 7z

Possible arguments: (none), p7zip,
partial

Extract using 7z(1) instead of bsdtar(1) and sets
EXTRACT_SUFX=.7z. The
p7zip option forces a dependency on the
7z from archivers/p7zip if the one from the base
system is not able to extract the files.
EXTRACT_SUFX is not changed if the
partial option is used, this can be used if
the main distribution file does not have a
.7z extension.

17.3.Â ada

Possible arguments: (none),
5,
6

Depends on an Ada-capable
compiler, and sets CC accordingly. Defaults
to use gcc 5 from ports. Use the
:X version option
to force building with a different version.

17.4.Â autoreconf

Possible arguments: (none), build

Runs autoreconf. It encapsulates the
aclocal, autoconf,
autoheader, automake,
autopoint, and libtoolize
commands. Each command applies to
${AUTORECONF_WRKSRC}/configure.ac or its
old name,
${AUTORECONF_WRKSRC}/configure.in. If
configure.ac defines subdirectories with
their own configure.ac using
AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS,
autoreconf will recursively update those as
well. The :build argument only adds build
time dependencies on those tools but does not run
autoreconf. A port can set
AUTORECONF_WRKSRC if
WRKSRC does not contain the path to
configure.ac.

17.5.Â blaslapack

17.6.Â bdb

Possible arguments: (none), 48,
5 (default), 6

Add dependency on the Berkeley DB
library. Default to databases/db5. It can also depend on
databases/db48 when using the
:48 argument or databases/db6 with
:6. It is possible to declare a range of
acceptable values, :48+ finds the highest
installed version, and falls back to 4.8 if nothing else is
installed. INVALID_BDB_VER can be used to
specify versions which do not work with this port. The
framework exposes the following variables to the port:

BDB_LIB_NAME

The name of the Berkeley DB
library. For example, when using databases/db5, it contains
db-5.3.

BDB_LIB_CXX_NAME

The name of the Berkeley DBC++ library. For example, when
using databases/db5, it
contains db_cxx-5.3.

BDB_INCLUDE_DIR

The location of the Berkeley
DB include directory. For example, when
using databases/db5, it
will contain
${LOCALBASE}/include/db5.

BDB_LIB_DIR

The location of the Berkeley
DB library directory. For example, when
using databases/db5, it
contains ${LOCALBASE}/lib.

BDB_VER

The detected Berkeley DB
version. For example, if using
USES=bdb:48+ and Berkeley
DB 5 is installed, it contains
5.

Important:

databases/db48 is
deprecated and unsupported. It must not be used by any
port.

17.7.Â bison

Possible arguments: (none), build,
run, both

Uses devel/bison By default,
with no arguments or with the build argument,
it implies bison is a build-time dependency,
run implies a run-time dependency, and
both implies both run-time and build-time
dependencies.

17.8.Â charsetfix

Possible arguments: (none)

Prevents the port from installing
charset.alias. This must be installed only
by converters/libiconv.
CHARSETFIX_MAKEFILEIN can be set to a path
relative to WRKSRC if
charset.alias is not installed by
${WRKSRC}/Makefile.in.

17.9.Â cmake

Possible arguments: (none), outsource,
run

Uses CMake for configuring and
building. With the outsource argument, an
out-of-source build will be performed. With the
run argument, a run-time dependency is
registered. For more information see SectionÂ 6.5.4, “Using cmake”.

17.10.Â compiler

Determines which compiler to use based on any given wishes.
Use c++14-lang if the port needs a
C++14-capable compiler, gcc-c++11-lib if the
port needs the g++ compiler with a C++11
library, or c++11-lib if the port needs
a C++11-ready standard library. If the port needs a compiler
understanding C++11, C++0X, C11, OpenMP, or nested functions,
the corresponding parameters can be used. Use
features to request a list of features
supported by the default compiler. After including
bsd.port.pre.mk the port can inspect the
results using these variables:

COMPILER_TYPE: the default compiler
on the system, either gcc or clang

ALT_COMPILER_TYPE: the alternative
compiler on the system, either gcc or clang. Only set if
two compilers are present in the base system.

COMPILER_VERSION: the first two
digits of the version of the default compiler.

ALT_COMPILER_VERSION: the first two
digits of the version of the alternative compiler, if
present.

CHOSEN_COMPILER_TYPE: the chosen
compiler, either gcc or clang

COMPILER_FEATURES: the features
supported by the default compiler. It currently lists the
C++ library.

17.11.Â cpe

Possible arguments: (none)

Include Common Platform Enumeration
(CPE) information in package manifest as a
CPE 2.3 formatted string. See the CPE
specification for details. To add
CPE information to a port, follow these
steps:

Add cpe to USES
and compare the result of make -V CPE_STR
to the CPE dictionary para. Continue one
step at a time until make -V CPE_STR is
correct.

If the product name (second field, defaults to
PORTNAME) is incorrect, define
CPE_PRODUCT.

If the vendor name (first field, defaults to
CPE_PRODUCT) is incorrect, define
CPE_VENDOR.

If the version field (third field, defaults to
PORTVERSION) is incorrect, define
CPE_VERSION.

If the update field (fourth field, defaults to empty) is
incorrect, define CPE_UPDATE.

If it is still not correct, check
Mk/Uses/cpe.mk for additional details,
or contact the Ports Security Team <ports-secteam@FreeBSD.org>.

Derive as much as possible of the CPE
name from existing variables such as
PORTNAME and
PORTVERSION. Use variable modifiers to
extract the relevant portions from these variables rather
than hardcoding the name.

Always run make -V
CPE_STR and check the output before committing
anything that changes PORTNAME or
PORTVERSION or any other variable which
is used to derive CPE_STR.

17.12.Â cran

Possible arguments: (none),
auto-plist,
compiles

Uses the Comprehensive R Archive Network. Specify
auto-plist to automatically generate
pkg-plist. Specify
compiles if the port has code that need to be
compiled.

17.13.Â desktop-file-utils

Possible arguments: (none)

Uses update-desktop-database from
devel/desktop-file-utils. An
extra post-install step will be run without interfering with any
post-install steps already in the port
Makefile. A line with @desktop-file-utils
will be added to the plist.

17.14.Â desthack

Possible arguments: (none)

Changes the behavior of GNU configure to properly support
DESTDIR in case the original software does
not.

17.15.Â display

Possible arguments: (none),
ARGS

Set up a virtual display environment. If the environment
variable DISPLAY is not set, then
Xvfb is added as a build dependency,
and CONFIGURE_ENV is extended with the port
number of the currently running instance of
Xvfb. The
ARGS
parameter defaults to install and controls
the phase around which to start and stop the virtual
display.

17.16.Â dos2unix

Possible arguments: (none)

The port has files with line endings in
DOS format which need to be converted.
Several variables can be set to control which files will be
converted. The default is to convert all
files, including binaries. See SectionÂ 4.4.3, “Simple Automatic Replacements” for
examples.

DOS2UNIX_REGEX: match file names
based on a regular expression.

DOS2UNIX_FILES: match literal file
names.

DOS2UNIX_GLOB: match file names based
on a glob pattern.

DOS2UNIX_WRKSRC: the directory from
which to start the conversions. Defaults to
${WRKSRC}.

17.17.Â drupal

Possible arguments:
7, module,
theme

Automate installation of a port that is a
Drupal theme or module. Use with the
version of Drupal that the port is expecting. For example,
USES=drupal:7,module says that this port
creates a Drupal 6 module. A Drupal 7 theme can be specified
with USES=drupal:7,theme.

17.19.Â fam

Uses a File Alteration Monitor as a library dependency,
either devel/fam or devel/gamin. End users can set
WITH_FAM_SYSTEM to specify their preference.

17.20.Â firebird

Possible arguments: (none), 25

Add a dependency to the client library of the Firebird
database.

17.21.Â fonts

Possible arguments: (none), fc,
fcfontsdir (default),
fontsdir, none

Adds a runtime dependency on tools needed to register fonts.
Depending on the argument, add a @fc ${FONTSDIR}
line, @fcfontsdir
${FONTSDIR} line, @fontsdir
${FONTSDIR} line, or no line if the argument is
none, to the plist.
FONTSDIR defaults to
${PREFIX}/share/fonts/${FONTNAME} and
FONTNAME to ${PORTNAME}.
Add FONTSDIR to PLIST_SUB
and SUB_LIST

17.22.Â fortran

Possible arguments: gcc (default)

Uses the GNU Fortran compiler.

17.23.Â fuse

Possible arguments: 2 (default),
3

The port will depend on the FUSE library and handle the
dependency on the kernel module depending on the version of
FreeBSD.

17.24.Â gecko

Add a dependency on different
gecko based applications. If
libxul is used, it is the only argument
allowed. When the argument is not libxul,
the firefox, seamonkey, or
thunderbird arguments can be used, along with
optional build and
XY/XY+
version arguments.

17.25.Â gem

Possible arguments: (none),
noautoplist

Handle building with RubyGems.
If noautoplist is used, the packing list is
not generated automatically.

17.26.Â gettext

17.27.Â gettext-runtime

Possible arguments: (none), lib
(default), build,
run

Uses devel/gettext-runtime.
By default, with no arguments or with the lib
argument, implies a library dependency on
libintl.so. build and
run implies, respectively a build-time and a
run-time dependency on gettext.

17.28.Â gettext-tools

Possible arguments: (none), build
(default), run

Uses devel/gettext-tools. By
default, with no argument, or with the build
argument, a build time dependency on msgfmt
is registered. With the run argument, a
run-time dependency is registered.

17.29.Â ghostscript

Possible arguments: X,
build, run,
nox11

A specific version X can be used.
Possible versions are 7,
8, 9, and
agpl (default). nox11
indicates
that the -nox11 version of the port is
required. build and run
add build- and run-time dependencies on
Ghostscript. The default is both
build- and run-time dependencies.

17.30.Â gmake

Possible arguments: (none)

Uses devel/gmake as a
build-time dependency and sets up the environment to use
gmake as the default make
for the build.

17.31.Â gnome

Possible arguments: (none)

Provides an easy way to depend on
GNOME components. The components
should be listed in USE_GNOME. The available
components are:

atk

atkmm

cairo

cairomm

dconf

esound

evolutiondataserver3

gconf2

gconfmm26

gdkpixbuf

gdkpixbuf2

glib12

glib20

glibmm

gnomecontrolcenter3

gnomedesktop3

gnomedocutils

gnomemenus3

gnomemimedata

gnomeprefix

gnomesharp20

gnomevfs2

gsound

gtk-update-icon-cache

gtk12

gtk20

gtk30

gtkhtml3

gtkhtml4

gtkmm20

gtkmm24

gtkmm30

gtksharp20

gtksourceview

gtksourceview2

gtksourceview3

gtksourceviewmm3

gvfs

intlhack

intltool

introspection

libartlgpl2

libbonobo

libbonoboui

libgda5

libgda5-ui

libgdamm5

libglade2

libgnome

libgnomecanvas

libgnomekbd

libgnomeprint

libgnomeprintui

libgnomeui

libgsf

libgtkhtml

libgtksourceviewmm

libidl

librsvg2

libsigc++12

libsigc++20

libwnck

libwnck3

libxml++26

libxml2

libxslt

metacity

nautilus3

orbit2

pango

pangomm

pangox-compat

py3gobject3

pygnome2

pygobject

pygobject3

pygtk2

pygtksourceview

referencehack

vte

vte3

The default dependency is build- and run-time, it can be
changed with :build or
:run. For example:

17.35.Â groff

17.36.Â gssapi

Handle dependencies needed by consumers of the
GSS-API. Only libraries that provide the
Kerberos mechanism are available. By
default, or set to base, the
GSS-API library from the base system is used.
Can also be set to heimdal to use security/heimdal, or
mit to use security/krb5.

When the local Kerberos
installation is not in LOCALBASE, set
HEIMDAL_HOME (for heimdal)
or KRB5_HOME (for krb5) to
the location of the Kerberos
installation.

These variables are exported for the ports to use:

GSSAPIBASEDIR

GSSAPICPPFLAGS

GSSAPIINCDIR

GSSAPILDFLAGS

GSSAPILIBDIR

GSSAPILIBS

GSSAPI_CONFIGURE_ARGS

The flags option can be given alongside
base, heimdal, or
mit to automatically add
GSSAPICPPFLAGS,
GSSAPILDFLAGS, and
GSSAPILIBS to CFLAGS,
LDFLAGS, and LDADD,
respectively. For example, use
base,flags.

17.38.Â iconv

Possible arguments: (none), lib,
build,
patch, translit,
wchar_t

Uses iconv functions, either from the
port converters/libiconv as a
build-time and run-time dependency, or from the base system on
10-CURRENT after a native iconv was committed
in 254273. By default, with no arguments
or with the lib argument, implies
iconv with build-time and run-time
dependencies. build implies a build-time
dependency, and patch implies a patch-time
dependency. If the port uses the WCHAR_T or
//TRANSLIT iconv extensions, add the relevant
arguments so that the correct iconv is used. For more
information see SectionÂ 6.23, “Using iconv”.

17.39.Â imake

Possible arguments: (none), env,
notall, noman

Add devel/imake as a
build-time dependency and run xmkmf -a during
the configure stage. If the
env argument is given, the
configure target is not set. If the
-a flag is a problem for the port, add the
notall argument. If xmkmf
does not generate a install.man
target, add the noman argument.

17.40.Â kde

17.41.Â kmod

Possible arguments: (none), debug

Fills in the boilerplate for kernel module ports,
currently:

Add kld to
CATEGORIES.

Set SSP_UNSAFE.

Set IGNORE if the kernel sources are
not found in SRC_BASE.

Define KMODDIR to
/boot/modules by default, add it to
PLIST_SUB and
MAKE_ENV, and create it upon
installation. If KMODDIR is set to
/boot/kernel, it will be rewritten to
/boot/modules. This prevents breaking
packages when upgrading the kernel due to
/boot/kernel being renamed to
/boot/kernel.old in the process.

Handle cross-referencing kernel modules upon
installation and deinstallation, using @kld.

If the debug argument is given, the
port can install a debug version of the module into
KERN_DEBUGDIR/KMODDIR.
By default, KERN_DEBUGDIR is copied from
DEBUGDIR and set to
/usr/lib/debug. The framework will
take care of creating and removing any required
directories.

17.42.Â lha

Possible arguments: (none)

Set EXTRACT_SUFX to
.lzh

17.43.Â libarchive

Possible arguments: (none)

Registers a dependency on archivers/libarchive. Any ports
depending on libarchive must include
USES=libarchive.

17.44.Â libedit

Possible arguments: (none)

Registers a dependency on devel/libedit. Any ports depending on
libedit must include
USES=libedit.

17.45.Â libtool

Possible arguments: (none), keepla,
build

Patches libtool scripts. This must be
added to all ports that use libtool. The
keepla argument can be used to keep
.la files. Some ports do not ship with
their own copy of libtool and need a build time dependency on
devel/libtool, use the
:build argument to add such
dependency.

17.47.Â localbase

Possible arguments: (none),
ldflags

Ensures that libraries from dependencies in
LOCALBASE are used instead of the ones from
the base system. Specify ldflags to add
-L${LOCALBASE}/lib to
LDFLAGS instead of LIBS.
Ports that depend on libraries that are also
present in the base system should use this. It is also used
internally by a few other USES.

17.48.Â lua

Possible arguments: (none),
XY+,
XY,
build, run

Adds a dependency on Lua. By
default this is a library dependency, unless overridden by the
build or run option. The
default version is 5.2, unless set by the
XY parameter (for
example, 51 or
52+).

17.49.Â lxqt

Possible arguments: (none)

Handle dependencies for the LXQt Desktop
Environment. Use USE_LXQT to
select the components needed for the port. See SectionÂ 6.14, “Using LXQt” for more information.

17.50.Â makeinfo

Possible arguments: (none)

Add a build-time dependency on makeinfo
if it is not present in the base system.

17.51.Â makeself

Possible arguments: (none)

Indicates that the distribution files are makeself archives
and sets the appropriate dependencies.

17.52.Â mate

Possible arguments: (none)

Provides an easy way to depend on
MATE components. The components
should be listed in USE_MATE. The available
components are:

autogen

caja

common

controlcenter

desktop

dialogs

docutils

icontheme

intlhack

intltool

libmatekbd

libmateweather

marco

menus

notificationdaemon

panel

pluma

polkit

session

settingsdaemon

The default dependency is build- and run-time, it can be
changed with :build or
:run. For example:

USES= mate
USE_MATE= menus:build intlhack

17.53.Â meson

Possible arguments: (none)

Provide support for Meson based projects.

17.54.Â metaport

Possible arguments: (none)

Sets the following variables to make it easier to create a
metaport: MASTER_SITES,
DISTFILES, EXTRACT_ONLY,
NO_BUILD, NO_INSTALL,
NO_MTREE, NO_ARCH.

17.55.Â mysql

Provide support for MySQL. If no
version is given, try to find the current installed version.
Fall back to the default version, MySQL-5.6. The possible
versions are 55, 55m,
55p, 56,
56p, 56w,
57, 57p,
80, 100m,
101m, and 102m. The
m and p suffixes are for
the MariaDB and
Percona variants of
MySQL. server and
embedded add a build- and run-time dependency
on the MySQL server. When using
server or embedded, add
client to also add a dependency on
libmysqlclient.so. A port can set
IGNORE_WITH_MYSQL if some versions are not
supported.

The framework sets MYSQL_VER to the
detected MySQL version.

17.56.Â mono

Possible arguments: (none), nuget

Adds a dependency on the Mono
(currently only C#) framework by setting the appropriate
dependencies.

Specify nuget when the port uses nuget
packages. NUGET_DEPENDS needs to be set with
the names and versions of the nuget packages in the format
name=version.
An optional package origin can be added using
name=version:origin.

The helper target, buildnuget,
will output the content of the NUGET_DEPENDS
based on the provided
packages.config.

17.58.Â ncurses

17.59.Â ninja

17.60.Â objc

Possible arguments: (none)

Add objective C dependencies (compiler, runtime library) if
the base system does not support it.

17.61.Â openal

Possible arguments: al,
soft (default), si,
alut

Uses OpenAL. The backend can be
specified, with the software implementation as the default. The
user can specify a preferred backend with
WANT_OPENAL. Valid values for this knob are
soft (default) and
si.

17.62.Â pathfix

Possible arguments: (none)

Look for Makefile.in and
configure in
PATHFIX_WRKSRC (defaults to
WRKSRC)
and fix common paths to make sure they respect the FreeBSD
hierarchy. For example, it fixes the installation directory
of pkgconfig's .pc files
to ${PREFIX}/libdata/pkgconfig. If
the port uses USES=autoreconf,
Makefile.am will be added to
PATHFIX_MAKEFILEIN automatically.

If the port USES=cmake it
will look for CMakeLists.txt in
PATHFIX_WRKSRC. If needed, that default
filename can be changed with
PATHFIX_CMAKELISTSTXT.

17.66.Â php

Provide support for PHP. Add a
runtime dependency on the default PHP version, lang/php56.

phpize

Use to build a PHP
extension.

ext

Use to build, install and register a
PHP extension.

zend

Use to build, install and register a Zend
extension.

build

Set PHP also as a
build-time dependency.

cli

Needs the CLI version of
PHP.

cgi

Needs the CGI version of
PHP.

mod

Needs the Apache module for
PHP.

web

Needs the Apache module or
the CGI version of
PHP.

embed

Needs the embedded library version of
PHP.

pecl

Provide defaults for fetching
PHP extensions from the PECL
repository.

Variables are used to specify which
PHP modules are required, as well as
which version of PHP are
supported.

USE_PHP

The list of required PHP
extensions at run-time. Add :build to
the extension name to add a build-time dependency.
Example: pcre xml:build gettext

DEFAULT_PHP_VER

Selects which major version of
PHP will be installed as a
dependency when no PHP is
installed yet. Default is 56.
Possible values: 55,
56, and 70.

IGNORE_WITH_PHP

The port does not work with
PHP of the given version.
Possible values: 55,
56, and 7.

When building a PHP or
Zend extension with
:ext or :zend, these
variables can be set:

PHP_MODNAME

The name of the PHP or
Zend extension. Default value
is ${PORTNAME}.

PHP_HEADER_DIRS

A list of subdirectories from which to install header
files. The framework will always install the header files
that are present in the same directory as the
extension.

PHP_MOD_PRIO

The priority at which to load the extension. It is a
number between 00 and
99.

For extensions that do not depend on any extension,
the priority is automatically set to
20, for extensions that depend on
another extension, the priority is automatically set to
30. Some extensions may need to be
loaded before every other extension, for example www/php56-opcache. Some may need
to be loaded after an extension with a priority of
30. In that case, add
PHP_MOD_PRIO=XX
in the port's Makefile. For example:

USES= php:ext
USE_PHP= wddx
PHP_MOD_PRIO= 40

17.67.Â pkgconfig

Possible arguments: (none), build
(default), run,
both

Uses devel/pkgconf. With no
arguments or with the build argument, it
implies pkg-config as a build-time
dependency. run implies a run-time
dependency and both implies both run-time and
build-time dependencies.

17.68.Â pure

Possible arguments: (none), ffi

Uses lang/pure. Largely used
for building related pure ports.
With the ffi argument, it implies devel/pure-ffi as a run-time
dependency.

17.69.Â pyqt

Possible arguments: (none), 4,
5

Uses PyQt. If the port is part
of PyQT itself, set PYQT_DIST. Use
USE_PYQT to select the components the port
needs. The available components are:

core

dbus

dbussupport

demo

designer

designerplugin

doc

gui

multimedia

network

opengl

qscintilla2

sip

sql

svg

test

webkit

xml

xmlpatterns

These components are only available with
PyQT4:

assistant

declarative

help

phonon

script

scripttools

These components are only available with
PyQT5:

multimediawidgets

printsupport

qml

serialport

webkitwidgets

widgets

The default dependency for each component is build- and
run-time, to select only build or run, add
_build or _run to the
component name. For example:

USES= pyqt
USE_PYQT= core doc_build designer_run

17.70.Â python

Uses Python. A supported version
or version range can be specified. If Python is only needed at
build time, run time or for the tests, it can be set as a build,
run or test dependency with build,
run, or test. If Python
is also needed during the patch phase, use
patch. See
SectionÂ 6.17, “Using Python” for more information.

PYTHON_NO_DEPENDS=yes can be used when
the variables exported by the framework are needed but a
dependency on Python is not. It can
happen when using with USES=shebangfix,
and the goal is only to fix the shebangs but not add a
dependency on Python.

17.71.Â qmail

Possible arguments: (none), build,
run, both,
vars

Uses mail/qmail. With the
build argument, it implies
qmail as a build-time dependency.
run implies a run-time dependency. Using no
argument or the both argument implies both
run-time and build-time dependencies. vars
will only set QMAIL variables for the port to use.

17.72.Â qmake

17.73.Â readline

Uses readline as a library
dependency, and sets CPPFLAGS and
LDFLAGS as necessary. If the
port argument is used or if readline is not
present in the base system, add a dependency on devel/readline

17.74.Â samba

Possible arguments: build,
env, lib,
run

Handle dependency on Samba.
env will not add any dependency and only set
up the variables. build and
run will add build-time and run-time
dependency on smbd. lib
will add a dependency on libsmbclient.so.
The variables that are exported are:

SAMBAPORT

The origin of the default
Samba port.

SAMBAINCLUDES

The location of the Samba
header files.

SAMBALIBS

The directory where the
Samba shared libraries are
available.

17.75.Â scons

17.76.Â shared-mime-info

Possible arguments: (none)

Uses update-mime-database from
misc/shared-mime-info. This uses
will automatically add a post-install step in such a way that
the port itself still can specify there own post-install step if
needed. It also add an @shared-mime-info
para to the plist.

17.77.Â shebangfix

Possible arguments: (none)

A lot of software uses incorrect locations for script
interpreters, most notably /usr/bin/perl
and /bin/bash. The shebangfix macro fixes
shebang lines in scripts listed in
SHEBANG_REGEX,
SHEBANG_GLOB, or
SHEBANG_FILES.

Contains a list of files or sh(1) globs. The
shebangfix macro is run from ${WRKSRC},
so SHEBANG_FILES can contain paths that
are relative to ${WRKSRC}. It can also
deal with absolute paths if files outside of
${WRKSRC} require patching. See ExampleÂ 17.11, “USES=shebangfix with
SHEBANG_FILES”.

The path to the command interpreter on FreeBSD. The
default value is
${LOCALBASE}/bin/interp.

interp_OLD_CMD

The list of wrong invocations of interpreters. These
are typically obsolete paths, or paths used on other
operating systems that are incorrect on FreeBSD. They
will be replaced by the correct path in
interp_CMD.

Note:

These will always be part of
interp_OLD_CMD:
"/usr/bin/env
interp"
/bin/interp
/usr/bin/interp
/usr/local/bin/interp.

Tip:

Important:

The fixing of shebangs is done during the
patch phase. If scripts are
created with incorrect shebangs during the
build phase, the build process (for
example, the configure script, or the
Makefiles) must be patched or given the
right path (for example, with
CONFIGURE_ENV,
CONFIGURE_ARGS,
MAKE_ENV, or MAKE_ARGS)
to generate the right shebangs.

Correct paths for supported interpreters
are available in
interp_CMD.

Tip:

When used with USES=python,
and the aim is only to fix the shebangs but a dependency on
Python itself is not wanted, use
PYTHON_NO_DEPENDS=yes.

ExampleÂ 17.6.Â Adding Another Interpreter to
USES=shebangfix

To add another interpreter, set
SHEBANG_LANG. For example:

SHEBANG_LANG= lua

ExampleÂ 17.7.Â Specifying all the Paths When Adding an Interpreter to
USES=shebangfix

If it was not already defined, and there were no default
values for
interp_OLD_CMD
and interp_CMD
the Ksh entry could be defined
as:

Some software uses strange locations for an interpreter.
For example, an application might expect
Python to be located in
/opt/bin/python2.7. The strange path to
be replaced can be declared in the port
Makefile:

python_OLD_CMD= /opt/bin/python2.7

ExampleÂ 17.9.Â USES=shebangfix with
SHEBANG_REGEX

To fix all the files in
${WRKSRC}/scripts ending in
.pl, .sh, or
.cgi do:

USES= shebangfix
SHEBANG_REGEX= ./scripts/.*\.(sh|pl|cgi)

Note:

SHEBANG_REGEX is used by running
find -E, which uses modern regular
expressions also known as extended regular expressions. See
re_format(7) for more information.

ExampleÂ 17.10.Â USES=shebangfix with
SHEBANG_GLOB

To fix all the files in ${WRKSRC}
ending in .pl or
.sh, do:

USES= shebangfix
SHEBANG_GLOB= *.sh *.pl

ExampleÂ 17.11.Â USES=shebangfix with
SHEBANG_FILES

To fix the files script/foobar.pl and
script/*.sh in
${WRKSRC}, do:

USES= shebangfix
SHEBANG_FILES= scripts/foobar.pl scripts/*.sh

17.78.Â sqlite

Possible arguments: (none), 2,
3

Add a dependency on SQLite. The
default version used is 3, but version 2 is also possible using
the :2 modifier.

17.79.Â ssl

Possible arguments: (none), build,
run

Provide support for OpenSSL.
A build- or run-time only dependency can be specified using
build or run.
These variables are available for the port's use, they are also
added to MAKE_ENV:

OPENSSLBASE

Path to the OpenSSL installation base.

OPENSSLDIR

Path to OpenSSL's
configuration files.

OPENSSLLIB

Path to the OpenSSL
libraries.

OPENSSLINC

Path to the OpenSSL
includes.

OPENSSLRPATH

If defined, the path the linker needs to use to find
the OpenSSL libraries.

Tip:

If a port does not build with an
OpenSSL flavor, set the
BROKEN_SSL variable, and possibly the
BROKEN_SSL_REASON_flavor:

BROKEN_SSL= libressl
BROKEN_SSL_REASON_libressl= needs features only available in OpenSSL

17.80.Â tar

17.81.Â tcl

Possible arguments: version,
wrapper, build,
run, tea

Add a dependency on Tcl. A
specific version can be requested using
version. The version can be empty,
one or more exact version numbers (currently
84, 85, or
86), or a minimal version number (currently
84+, 85+ or
86+). To only request a non version specific
wrapper, use wrapper. A build- or run-time
only dependency can be specified using build
or run. To build the port using the
Tcl Extension Architecture, use
tea. After including
bsd.port.pre.mk the port can inspect the
results using these variables:

TCL_VER: chosen major.minor version
of Tcl

TCLSH: full path of the
Tcl interpreter

TCL_LIBDIR: path of the
Tcl libraries

TCL_INCLUDEDIR: path of the
Tcl C header files

TK_VER: chosen major.minor version of
Tk

WISH: full path of the
Tk interpreter

TK_LIBDIR: path of the
Tk libraries

TK_INCLUDEDIR: path of the
Tk C header files

17.82.Â terminfo

Possible arguments: (none)

Adds @terminfo
to the plist. Use when the port installs
*.terminfo files
in ${PREFIX}/share/misc.

17.83.Â tk

Same as arguments for tcl

Small wrapper when using both Tcl
and Tk. The same variables are
returned as when using Tcl.

17.84.Â uidfix

Possible arguments: (none)

Changes some default behavior (mostly variables) of
the build system to allow installing this port as a normal
user. Try this in the port before using USES=fakeroot or
patching.

17.85.Â uniquefiles

Possible arguments: (none), dirs

Make files or directories 'unique', by adding a prefix or
suffix. If the dirs argument is used, the
port needs a prefix (a only a prefix) based on
UNIQUE_PREFIX for standard directories
DOCSDIR, EXAMPLESDIR,
DATADIR, WWWDIR,
ETCDIR. These variables are available for
ports:

UNIQUE_PREFIX: The prefix to be used
for directories and files. Default:
${PKGNAMEPREFIX}.

UNIQUE_PREFIX_FILES: A list of files
that need to be prefixed. Default: empty.

UNIQUE_SUFFIX: The suffix to be used
for files. Default:
${PKGNAMESUFFIX}.

UNIQUE_SUFFIX_FILES: A list of files
that need to be suffixed. Default: empty.

17.86.Â varnish

17.87.Â webplugin

Automatically create and remove symbolic links for each
application that supports the webplugin framework.
ARGS can be one of:

gecko: support plug-ins based on
Gecko

native: support plug-ins for Gecko,
Opera, and WebKit-GTK

linux: support Linux plug-ins

all (default, implicit): support all
plug-in types

(individual entries): support only the browsers
listed

These variables can be adjusted:

WEBPLUGIN_FILES: No default, must be
set manually. The plug-in files to install.

WEBPLUGIN_DIR: The directory to
install the plug-in files to, default
PREFIX/lib/browser_plugins/WEBPLUGIN_NAME.
Set this if the port installs plug-in files outside of the
default directory to prevent broken symbolic links.

WEBPLUGIN_NAME: The final directory
to install the plug-in files into, default
PKGBASE.

11.0-CURRENT after renaming
<sys/capability.h> to
<sys/capsicum.h> to avoid a
clash with similarly named headers in other operating
systems. A compatibility header is left in place to
limit build breakage, but will be deprecated in due
course.